


Electrolyte Mind

by piranabo



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Angst and Humor, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, High School, Homophobia, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Humor, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, References to Suicide, Science Bros, Self-Harm, Slow Build, Suicidal Thoughts, bruce and tony take turns between angsting and being snarky bitches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:57:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piranabo/pseuds/piranabo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(High school AU) The first time Tony Stark talks to Bruce Banner is the same day Bruce Banner first tries to kill himself. </p><p>Tony Stark doesn’t realize he is the reason that Bruce fails.</p><p>Bruce Banner doesn’t realize he repays the favor three years later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Polished Sides

**Author's Note:**

> (TW: attempted suicide; mentions of self harm; anxiety issues)
> 
> The story starts off fairly dark and serious, but the tone switches to something lighter relatively quickly. Also, this chapter is a lot shorter than the others will be. Expect roughly 3000 words per chapter after this one. Either way, I really loved writing this, and hope you’ll enjoy it too!
> 
> Note: I tagged all the people that will eventually be in this story. The first chapters are mainly Science-bro centered, but more characters and subplots will emerge as the story goes on.
> 
> UPDATE 8/21/2014 - Proofread almost entire work. Small fixes. Continuity errors removed. Grammar improvements.

\--- **Chapter 1:** **Polished Sides** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

It’s at the party Tony throws freshman year. Tony has just moved to New York and into new high school, and wants people to like him without him really trying. He’s rich; a party happens. Everyone’s invited. There are drugs because Tony can afford them, and drinks for the ambience of it. His dad’s away at business in a lab fifty miles away.

Fourteen’s too young to throw parties, but Tony hit puberty early, and isn’t bothered to care. He has the maids set it up. There’s enough food for three hundred people, though only a hundred show up. Tony lives in a mansion, and his dad is famous. People want to meet him. Tony obliges them.

Bruce Banner, meanwhile, has the worst day of his life (he keeps track) for no particular reason. It’s a week into high school, and the day starts off with no food in the mini fridge which is also the only fridge in his mom’s three-room apartment. In school, a girl bumps into him by mistake. Bruce yells at her for no reason, and everyone within twenty feet looks at him like he is a sociopath. Bruce agrees with them.

He’s on edge. Every sound is too loud; every light is too bright. His new science teacher has a voice like an arthropod, and her passion for the subject is limited by whatever Howard Stark’s latest Teacher Edition textbook has on the agenda for the day. She pronounces something wrong, making Bruce’s eye twitch. She is talking about human biology, and pronounces ‘human’ as ‘yuman.’ It’s the dumbest thing. It makes Bruce want to punch something.

He is stabbing his pen into the nook between two of his fingers, and surprises himself when he notices it is bleeding. Bruce asks to go to the nurse. His teacher says ‘in a minute,’ and writes him a pass after forty-two more. The really strong urge to punch her is back.

Bruce goes into the bathroom and punches his arm instead. A few times, just so it’s throbbing worse than his head is. Deep breaths, and he washes his face. A curl of hair gets caught on his eyelash. He pushes it away, and it falls back in his eye. His arm might be bruising. He wisps the strand away.

It slips down.

Bruce yells out a groan, and a boy who just walked in turns around and promptly leaves Bruce alone. Bruce sinks into the floor and buries his forehead in his hands. It’s too loud, again.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

By lunch his first day, Tony has a group of six or so girls begging him to sit with them. Tony likes girls; Boys usually can’t stand him.

They’re popular girls by how perfectly their eyeliner is put on and the number of lone kids sitting spaced out from each other at a table in the corner staring viciously at them. Tony asks them to spread word about his party that Friday, and by that Friday, it’s all anyone in the freshmen class is talking about.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

He’s just going to slit his neck with his pocket knife. The wrist will take too long, and he doesn’t want to give the impression of being some uninformed teenage moron in his death. To Bruce, it’s not an ordeal, his suicide. He’ll see if they have food in the fridge, eat if they do, be irritated if they don’t, then end himself.

The pocket knife was a gift from an old friend of his. It has Bruce’s initials engraved on it and three different blades. If he was going to die, it would have to be from that knife. Any others just wouldn’t work right. It’s kept safe in a velvet baggie he keeps tied to his belt.

The rest of the day goes by slowly. Bruce apologizes to the girl when she slips against him again, and even helps her pick up her things. She’s still scared of him. Bruce has no reaction to this. He’s in a state of total apathy. His pulse is beating in metronomic.

Bruce stays at the library, lets himself breathe in the adult literature section, grabs a book at random, and reads it all before leaving. It’s dark out, or would be. New York is always lit up, Howard Stark’s mansion seeming brighter than all of them that night. Bruce rubs his neck right along the carotid artery he’ll slice. The way New York is illuminated makes it look kind of like stars, he thinks at random. The sight was probably beautiful if he hadn't grown up with it.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony had enough food for everyone, but apparently the only people allowed in Stark mansion are alcoholics because they run out of drinks in roughly an hour. He sighs, melodramatic, and declares himself a brave night who shall venture into the unforgiving night in search of drink. Everyone laughs except for a muscular blond kid with a lightning bolt shirt, who simply wishes Tony the best in his ‘valiant quest for mead’. Tony decides to interpret that as a joke.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Bruce is going to leave a note. Probably telling mom to stop buying food for him, and that life got boring if any of the three people Bruce cares about would want to know why.

When he’s walking down the street, Bruce sees some kid from either his science or Spanish class on the latest iPhone, laughing as he walks and texts. The kid passes him. Bruce wonders what was so funny.

Like clockwork, the kid stops. Bruce pauses with him.

Tony turns around, having caught a somewhat familiar face from his texting peripheral. He is right. It’s Bruce Flag or Banner or Tapestry or who-knows from him science and Spanish classes.

“Oh, hey, Bruce, right?” Bruce looks at him. “Little late to be walking to my party, huh? Tony, from science and Spanish, by the way.” Tony extends his hand and Bruce stares at it a minute before taking it.

“Bruce Banner. And I’m afraid I can’t make it.”

“Why’s that? Too good for rich-boy parties where everything is free and the girls all look like they hit puberty at six?”

Bruce laughs, slightly bitter. “No. I have plans, unfortunately.”

“Cancel them! I’m getting alcohol. Illegally, also. Don’t tell anyone.”

Bruce makes a zipping motion over his lips. “I’ll take it to my grave.” Tonight, actually. “I still can’t come, though.”

“Right. Did I mention my dad is Howard Stark? In case you have been living under a rock the last week and don’t know my full name is Tony Stark, I mean.”

“I know your dad. His textbooks legally qualify as a form of torture in Korea and select areas of Northern China.” Bruce squinted. “Japan, too, but only on the third Tuesday of each month and the weekends.”

Tony’s eyebrows go up and then he laughs. “Ha! You, Bruce Tapestry, aren’t half awful.”

“It’s Banner.”

“They’re synonyms. Well, Bruce Banner, if you manage to find a surgeon good enough to get that stick out your ass by my next party, do come. I need more people to snark with.”

“Try ‘snark-meet.net’. I hear they offer discounts if your family is rich enough to buy their ancestry into slavery.”

                                                                    

“Oh. Well, I must get twenty percent off, at least.”

Bruce exhales a laugh. “Yeah, do look into that. Well, till then. It was nice meeting you, Tony.”

Tony smirks. “Pleasure’s all mine, Bruce.”

And they nod at each other and walk away in opposite directions.

Bruce goes into his apartment. There are new bullet holes in a door a few floors down. He is glad there aren’t any on his. After locking the door, Bruce checks the fridge: empty. His mom is sleeping in her room, enjoying the few hours she has between her jobs. Bruce writes a note to remind her to buy more food (for just herself) and signs his full name on it with heart over each ‘B’ because he loves his mom.

He walks into his room and closes the door. The lone lightbulb in it is old and flickers slightly from dim to dimmer. Bruce sighs. He lies down on his bed and stares at the ceiling for ten minutes, then lazes up on his shoulders.

Showtime, Bruce thinks.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony walks back the way he came with a shopping cart full of something really cheap that probably tastes awful because those jerks deserve it for making him _walk_ , even if he volunteered, and most of those jerks are perfectly charming, nice, and B-cups, minimum. On his way there, he sees a little pouch on the sidewalk, and picks it up. He may be rich, but finders keepers, he says.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Bruce wonders if it would be inappropriate to jack off one more time before killing himself. Probably, and he doesn’t want to have to walk all the way outside and downstairs to the hose to shower off afterwards, so he decides the answer is yes, and forgoes cumming one last time. It never was that amazing, anyway.

His glasses are off and neat in their case on his nightstand. Bruce’s fingers trace the soft bags under his eyes. They drift to the artery in his neck, him closing his eyelids and not planning on opening them again, ever.

His pulse is smooth; it’s relaxing, peaceful. The shaky ceiling fan squeaks a bit. It doesn’t bother him, for once. It’s the perfect moment to die.

Bruce gropes for the small pouch with his knife, absolutely content.

He can’t feel it.

His eyes open, and he looks.

It isn’t there.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony Stark, two more hours into the party after his return with new drinks, decides to open the little baggie he found. He pulls open the drawstring and takes out an object from it.

It’s a knife with polished wood sides and ‘B.B.’ professionally engraved into the side.

Tony Stark wonders just what the hell ‘B.B.’ stands for.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Bruce Banner finishes his freshman year valedictorian. When he gets home, the fridge is stocked with food. He eats three meals a day for a week like an absolute boss.

Tony Stark, meanwhile, doesn’t remember talking to any jerk-off named ‘Bruce Banner’ before, but when it’s announced first period, last day, that the prick beat him by a hundredth of a point on being valedictorian, he is seriously tempted to.

Bruce getting top of their class is absolute shit, Tony thinks, because Tony lost those points in _gym class_. Not because he wasn’t fit or didn’t test well, but because he didn’t want to change _one day_ with the gay kid who just came out in their class. No offense to gay people, but Tony’s dick is reserved especially for the eyes of woman suitors only, thank you very much.

But with the shenanigans of the last day, Tony forgets about Bruce Banner until he’s already walking up the stairs of Stark mansion.

Well, first day of sophomore year, he decides, Tony Stark is giving Bruce Banner hell. Then an idea strikes him.

Why wait?


	2. Attention to Pacing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6/16/16: chapter reworked and proof read; continuity fixes, BS science is now less BS

\--- **Chapter 2:** **Attention to Pacing** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

A week after school ends, Bruce checks his email on a laptop he rehabilitated from Best Buy’s trashcan. He actually has a new message, for once.

… Who the hell is Tony Stark?

Dumb question. Tony Stark is Howard Stark’s son, a classmate, millionaire, brilliant, flirt. Bruce is really asking who Tony Stark is to him—he can’t remember sharing two words with the guy. He reads the email.

 _To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: Shocking New surgery discovered to remove metal pipes from asses  
Message:

_Dear Mr. Bruce Banner,_

_It has come to my attention that I have no idea who the fuck you are. Also, drbb? Really? I could have found your email by keysmashing. Got it from your lab partner, Pepper Potts, by the way. Poor girl CC'd me on a report she'd sent to you a few months back after I asked what was happening in your Bio section, so now I basically know everything about you._

Tony Stark, Bruce realizes, is also a bit of an asshole. At least he uses proper grammar.

                   _But that is for another day. I’m sending you this e-mail because I noticed you haven’t been to ANY of my parties, and most nerds have at least ATTEMPTED going to one of them. Plus back when me and her were dating, Pepper always said you were a pretty decent lab mate, and she's picky. So, either I track down whatever house on Maple Go-Fuck-Yourself Drive you live at and tell everyone my school’s-finally-done shindig is going to be hosted there, or I see you at Stark manner at 6:00 PM, sharp, this Friday. Do not make me grab that pipe out your ass myself—ask any girl from our class. Get Tony Stark on your ass and you won't be able to sit for weeks._

This man is threatening him by saying he will invite people over to party at his house which doesn’t exist (three room apartments next to hundreds of other three-room apartments isn’t a house) and grabbing his ass. Bruce rubs his temples slightly. He would probably find the email funny if it wasn’t coercing him into unwanted human interaction. Bruce doesn’t work well with people.

                   _Oh also BTW this is NOT a threat. It’s just a... friendly suggestion with negative consequences if you don’t concede. But seriously, come or ELSE I will moderately inconvenience your ass so hard. So, that. Till, Friday, Banner._

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

At first, Bruce thinks Tony signed it with a heart, but then sees it is supposed to be a spade. Idiotic, maybe a parody of Myspace username culture since from what Bruce has read, Tony Stark isn't the xX_Myspace_Xx type. Bruce smirks, going into the signature settings of his own email.

So Tony isn’t planning on dumping pig’s blood on the guy, but he has to do something to Bruce. You do not outsmart Tony Stark and get away with it, especially when you’re not actually smarter than Tony is.

 _To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_No._

_ <3333 Bruce ||_

Nope. That most certainly was not the sound of Tony being outsmarted. That sound does not exist.

 _To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: Dear Bruce  
Message:

_Why did you sign your message with hearts? Ass-grabbing thing was a joke, BTW. I know such a thing must be foreign to your abstract species, but do try to get with the culture._

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

_To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_*No thank you. Better?_

_ <3333 Bruce ||_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: Dear Bruce  
Message:

 _You sent two ‘No’s in a row. Double negative equals a positive. Friday it is, then!!!_ _J_

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

_To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_My species does not understand the repetitive utilization of the character ‘!’Perhaps the ‘banner’ subspecies diverges from that of the illustrious ‘stark’ by way of linguistics, then?_

_ <3333 Bruce ||_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: Tony’s ‘banner’ Observation Log, Day 1  
Message:

_The subspecies appears to be functioning off of a neurological structure akin to that of the primitive homosapien. Since the Brutus Bannerius’ discovery, it has yet to show any traits differentiating itself from a lesser-leveled chimpanzee, though further observation may be necessary for more conclusive results._

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

Bruce smirks. He doesn’t have anything against Tony Stark (excluding the threatening him into going to a party fiasco), but anyone who tries to out-fuck Bruce Banner on the Internet is on his hit list. Bruce gets up and takes ten minutes to make coffee before replying. Since Tony mentioned ass-grabbing first message, Bruce figures he can go all out with this reply. This is Tony wouldn't-shower-with-another-guy Stark, after all. Those quasi-homophobe types are easy to annoy. 

_To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: Bruce’s ‘stark’ Observation Log, Day 1  
Message:

_dis creture appears to be the homoo  
_

_ <3333 Bruce ||_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_Based on how the typo ended up working out, I'm either a homo, a ho moo, or a homo moo, and I'm going to need some clarity as to if your log is implying my species is gay, a prostitute cow, or a gay prostitute cow. If I need to whore my utters out for milk money with sexually frustrated bulls, so be it, but you need to TELL me these things, Brucie.  
_

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

Bruce spits a sip of coffee onto his chest with an absolutely uncontrollable laugh, because he was not expected that as the reply, and Tony's humor is spot on with his own. Gagging a bit and wiping his face with his sleeve. He reads it again and can’t stop giggling for a minute, even though it's the stupidest, most garbage pun he's read in his life that Bruce wasn't even trying to make. All right, maybe Friday won’t be the worst day of his life, he admits, not bothering to respond to Tony.

Two days pass, and it’s Friday. Tony Stark has good timing, Bruce thinks, because his fridge just ran out again.

It’s Tony’s first party with an exclusive guest list. Tony sends out personal invitations to people that aren’t too terrible, and a few that are just for drama, ending up with forty-or-so people on his list. They’re set to arrive at 6:30 because Tony wants some alone time with Mr. Vale _dick_ torian.

Bruce doesn’t have particularly nice clothes to wear, so he goes with whatever button-down is the least dirty and black jeans. He attempts to coif his hair in the mirror to no avail. One stand keeps falling into his eye.

Banner knocks on his door at 5:58pm exact. Tony is surprised he showed up on time. Opening it, there’s messy-hair, too-small glasses, poor-people-clothes Bruce Banner standing slack-knee’d in the doorway.

“You made it!” Tony says with the biggest fake smile he can muster. “I’m so glad.” The smile capsizes after a minute of Bruce just standing there, looking at him sideways and analytical. “What?”

After another minute, Bruce speaks.

“Oh, do you wear a pacemaker or something?” he asks half-minded.

Tony freezes. Bruce loiters, expression on his face bored and informal, like pointing out _that_ is commonplace. Like wrecking four years of a carefully disguised secret is _commonplace_. If Tony Stark didn’t have reason to hate Bruce before, he sure as hell does now.

Tony forces a laugh instead.

“If that’s that dry, trolling sense of humor, you are going to have to try a little harder.”

Bruce glances at the security camera perched top-left of the door, then points to it.

“That camera. Stark Medical Anti-Theft series, right? My mom's hospital uses the same ones since they're marketed for not screwing with the pacemakers. I’ve read Howard Stark biography about three times; he doesn’t wear one. So I was just wondering if you do.”

Tony scoffs. “Right. Cute. Sorry to let Mumsie down, but the cameras here are custom-made variant on the system released to the public. Their configuration is something you’ve probably never even seen before, so I see how you could confuse it for something,” Tony says the next word bitterly, “ _commonplace_ , like the wholesale model.”

Bruce’s eyebrows go up, face still flat. “A ‘no’ would have worked, too.”

“This how you act at all your parties, Banner? Glad you didn’t show up before.”

“You want me to leave?”

Tony leers to himself. If this Banner kid just made up that pacemaker comment to get himself kicked out, Tony is actually going to scream. “Of course not, learn take a joke. And it’s too hot to be outside; come in already.”

Stark mansion is bigger than the pictures on Wikipedia led Bruce to believe. Everything is spaced out, furnished and decorated in a contemporary way that screams ‘We have a lot of money!’ and makes Bruce start picking at his wrists with his fingernails.

“This a private party?” he says when he realizes him and Tony are the only people in the room.

“For the next thirty minutes, I’m afraid. Misprint on the invitations.”

“Invitations? Word on the nerd-circuit is that your parties are open house.”

“Dad doesn’t like open house anymore. Not since some seniors crashed the last one and, essentially, broke one of my dad’s labs. And now, of course, I have to devote four hours, minimum, each day to fixing it,” he said. “Wasn’t even the engineering lab, either. It was the stupid Physics Med lab he never uses.”

Bruce looks around again, kicking off his shoes. “A Medical lab? I could probably help with that.” He examines the couch before Tony nods, giving him permission to sit. “I’m not bad at science.”

“I’m aware, _Mr. Valedictorian_.”

“Considering how outrageously easy our classes were this year, that’s hardly an accomplishment. And the dean said I was lucky and beat the number-two guy by, like, a tenth a point. ”

“Hundredth a point, and yes, you are lucky. Pretty sure I did better in almost every class that wasn't gym.” Tony was trying really hard to sound jocular.

“You sound like you’re about to slap a puppy.”

Maybe not trying hard enough.

“No dogs at Stark enterprises, I’m afraid, unless they’re mechanical. I’m not too keen on things that drool and have hair all over.”

“Oh, we’re not gonna get along well, then.”

Tony laughed and was annoyed by how genuine it felt. “Guess not. Will I have to get a leash?”

“Kinky.” Bruce toys with the rim of his glasses. “Not ‘till the third date, though.”

Tony smirks. “And how would you know what happens on the third date?” he asks. Bruce misses a beat with forming a comeback, and Tony continues. “No offense, but I know every girl in our class at least vicariously, and none of them have ever mentioned a Bruce Banner. Your species reproduce asexually or something?”

Bruce looks away with a laugh that’s too shaky to be sincere. Got him, Tony thinks with an ostensibly innocuous grin.

Just then there is knocking on the door from the assholes at parties who always show up too early. Tony sighs and goes to answer it with his favorite ‘fuck-you’ grin.

Throughout the next hour, Tony learns that Bruce can’t work anything with boobs to save his life. So of course Tony proceeds to introduce him to every girl he invited. One of them checks him out and just says ‘ew.’ Tony starts to think he might like this girl, when Bruce replies with ‘I like you; you’re honest,’ and Tony has to cup a hand over his mouth to not laugh at how perfectly wry Banner is.

Tony had told Bruce via email to wear a bathing suit under his clothes since his pool is probably bigger than Bruce’s house. By the time they go outside to the outdoor pool, it’s dark, and everyone is sugar-high or mildly drunk enough to think skinny-dipping is a _fantastic_ idea (though Tony thinks skinny-dipping is always a fantastic idea, under the influence or not.)

“I don’t do ‘naked,’” Bruce tells him.

“Come on, everyone else is doing it. Don’t you know how peer pressure works?”

“Don’t you know nerds aren’t affected by peer pressure?” Bruce sits down in one of the designer beach chairs by the water.

“Fine. You can sit there cross-legged in the corner with the other people who have small dicks.” The face Bruce makes is hilarious. “What? What other reason would anyone have for passing up pool time with _naked woman_?”

“I wasn’t actually planning on jumping anyone tonight, or even showing up to be honest.”

Tony smiles a bit and tosses off his shirt. The pool is lit by mini-lanterns, exotic plants scattered around its perimeter. Tony steps half-behind one of them and yanks down his shorts. He notices Bruce is staring at him (his ass?).

“Like something you see, Banner?”

Bruce smiles. It almost qualifies as a smirk. “Yeah, actually.” Well, Tony wasn’t expecting that answer—“Incision scars by your left femoral artery. Latest tech uses the femoral over the corollary for less noticeable scarring when operating with the heart.”

Any trace of amusement falls from Tony’s eyes.

“I had this really sexually messed up girlfriend a few months ago,” he tries to no avail.

“With a kink for cardioplasty?”

“Would you—” Tony snaps then takes a long breath in an anger control method Bruce could recognize in his sleep. The scene would have felt a lot more intense if Tony wasn’t entirely naked.

“Hey, I’m sorry, chill down,” he says. Bruce can’t remember the last time _he_ tried to calm _someone else_ down. “Was it an accident thing or something? The reason you need a—”

“Blood problem,” Tony interrupts.

“Right. Probably was kinda dickish for me to bring up.”

“You really want to apologize?” Bruce nods. “Glasses and shirt off. You’re getting stark naked with a Stark.”

Bruce stares a minute then shrugs. “Opportunity of a lifetime, I guess.”

“You bet your ass it is!”

He strips and stops at his bathing suit.

“What happened to opportunity of a lifetime? And size doesn’t matter, Bruce,” Tony drawls. Bruce is starting to find this situation slightly ridiculous.

“Piss off. I just don’t… naked with total strangers. Starks or not.”

“So you’re just a voyeur? No shame watching, but joining? No, sir; not for me!”

“Better a voyeur than a cardiophile.”

“Watch your tongue,” Tony says sharply, then gives up with a sigh. “Fine. Let’s just go swimming, already. It’s too damn hot.”

Bruce starts towards the pool ladder, and Tony grabs his shoulder. “Live a little. The deep end is twelve feet; we’re diving.”

They dive, Tony showboating for the girls with a front-flip, and Bruce rating it ‘seven-point-eight out of ten’ before cannoning in himself.

The pool is fun. Tony doesn’t know if he enjoys brushing up against naked girls himself, or watching Bruce turn white and red in fear whenever a girl crosses Bruce’s own path. It’s the perfect brand of Stark revenge, Tony thinks, and perfectly ironic that Bruce would be terrible at one of the two things Tony was good at.

An hour later, the night chill gets too cold, and everyone is toweling off inside. Bruce shimmies a towel over his hair. “So, all your parties involve borderline orgies in the swimming pool?”

“No, you must be a good luck charm,” Tony says, towel over his shoulder, clothed [finally] in shorts and an oversized Hulk T-shirt.

“Nice shirt, by the way.” Bruce wipes droplets of his glasses then slides them back on.

Tony glances down at it. “Oh, thanks. My dad’s a Captain America stan, so it bugs the ever loving crap out of him whenever I flip my shit for another Marvel hero. And Brice Tanner is a pretty cool guy, minus the whole green-rage monster ordeal.”

“More of an Anthony Marks man myself.”

“Iron man, good taste.” Tony throws his towel on Bruce’s head. “Hulk’s better though.”

Bruce pulls the towel off and folds it into a neat-square on the edge of the plastic-covered couch. He starts to say something when a high-pitched buzz comes from Tony’s pocket.

“Sorry, my phone. Ringtone is a frequency adults _actually_ can’t hear; not the mosquito-pitch propaganda science marketers try to sell you.” Tony looks at his phone. “Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Oh. Right, well it’s midnight, meaning I’m going to have to start herding everyone out now.” Tony types a code into his phone. A robotic, British voice sounds throughout the room.

_“Attention guests, Mister Stark has informed me the party has ended, and is now requesting you escort yourselves out and home for the night.”_

Bruce lifts a brow.

“His name’s JARVIS. Robotic AI I programmed in seventh grade. Still needs some upgrading though; all he does is play doorman currently, and I need to find a way to code around my dad’s filter for it. I told JARVIS to say _‘freeloaders, get your asses out, ASAP’_ but, I’ll take what you can get.”

Bruce nods and watches as the partygoers start to leave. Tony goes to hold the door open for them and bids their adieus. They leave in sets of four or five, each one centered by a member who’s able to walk straight. Designated driver, Bruce guesses and wonders if it’s a rule Tony enforces at all his parties.

His wondering is interrupted when some girl Veronica throws a piece of paper at him on her way out. The last of the guests leave as Bruce un-crumples it. There’s a phone number written on it.

Tony side-steps back to Bruce and leans over. “Phone number? Which handsome man gave you it?”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “It’s Veronica, I think. The one who called me ‘ew.’ Guess my charming personality wooed her.”

Tony leans over. It’s actually her number. Tony would know because he has it, too.

“Oh, that’s not her actually number,” he says. Like he’s letting Bruce Banner get a taste of confidence.

“Really? Area code’s right.”

“I have Vay’s number. That’s not it.”

Bruce shrugs and throws it over his shoulder into a nearby trashbin. It misses, but the room is trashed enough for it not to matter. “I probably wasn’t going to text her anyway. Or at all. My phone doesn’t do texting.”

Tony sits down on the couch and folds his legs. “What phone doesn't do texting?”

“The one and only.” Bruce takes out a small 2003-era flip phone. "Plus my family doesn't have a data plan, obviously. Texting can cost a lot of money when you're as popular and irresistible as I am."

“Oh, I would imagine as much. And god, that phone is an eye-sore.”

Bruce dials a number, waits, then closes his phone. “Ah, shit.”

“Hm?”

“Nothing. My mom’s shift probably just ran late again, so I’ll have to walk home.” He stuffs his phone in his pocket, standing up from the couch.

“What does your mom do again? Research?”

“Nurse.” Bruce’s mom is technically a cardiologist, but Bruce feels like mentioning it will hit a nerve. Plus, his mom only volunteers for the time being. Real cardiologists tend to get paid.

“A nurse? And the best phone you can afford is that piece of junk?”                                 

The lights in the room get brighter. “Hey, piss off,” he tries to say lightly, but it’s too harsh to be written off as a quip.

Tony leans back in his couch, plastic cover scrunching and squeaking. Bruce’s eye twitches.

“Testy. Did I hit a nerve?” The last comment is pushing it, but Tony wants to push.

Bruce starts towards the door. “Not hard enough.” He opens it, hoping fresh air and a walk home will make everything quiet again. “Well, this has been fun, but I really can’t stand fluorescent lights, so—”

“Bruce,” Tony starts, raising a brow, “we don’t use fluorescent lights. All natural, energy-savers here.”

Bruce stops and bites his lip. Nothing’s calm. “Right. Of course; I’m dumb, fucking dumb,” he says and tries a deep breath like Tony had earlier, waving Tony a half-assed good-bye and stepping out. It’s dark outside except for the small red light from Starks’ security cameras. Bruce glances at them one last time as he walks out the driveway. He’s trying really hard to appear nonchalant.

The second he figures he’s out of the camera’s view, he starts sprinting. Legs flying, lungs compressing and Bruce worries too much, and he’s worried about his mom who really should have answered her phone. Worrying makes his head tight. As he runs, he becomes worried about his breathing and how small his chest feels. He reaches his apartment, reaches past the abandoned door with old bullet holes, reaches past the stairs so quickly, he almost trips, reaches past his door at slams it open hard. The lights are off.

His hand goes instinctively to where he used to keep a knife of his. It’s gone now. He turns on the light.

His mom is fine, asleep on the couch, snoring.

Bruce overreacted. Again.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony considers the party ordeal a success despite him not being done helping the maids (robots) clean it up till one, and actually being in bed by two. There’s a red light from the cameras his dad keeps plastered everywhere in the top corner just in case someone tries to rob them. It probably wouldn’t have bugged Tony if Banner hadn’t made those stupid comments earlier. Tony ignores it and closes his eyes.

But he can’t ignore it. The red light feels so bright he can see it through his eyelids. He forces the covers off of himself and trudges to it with a groan, then shuts it off.

Darkness lulls him to sleep.

The cameras are a hybrid of the standard Stark Medical Anti-Theft release and Stark-ingenuity. Howard originally wasn’t going to tell Tony they were fixed for his son's condition on grounds of how sensitive Tony was about the issue, but ended up doing so just to make sure Tony wouldn’t shut them off and accidentally reset their tuning, a flaw of design Howard just found himself too busy to fix when the prototype was almost released and hospitals Howard had contracts with wanted the technology as quickly as possible. Still, Tony’s condition was unique. The electromagnetic interference reduction technology which allows the system to operate safely with normal pacemaker brands doesn't block enough signals for Tony's own device to continue pumping at necessary speeds. Over time, Tony's device will slow until it stops functioning entirely. If that happens, Tony Stark will not have a heartbeat anymore.

Howard was a good father by telling Tony this.

It’s really a shame Tony Stark, tired, groggy and imprudent, never listens to his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Bruce is an internet troll and Tony is in denial of himself. Go figure.


	3. Gamebreaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6/16/16: proof-read, continuity and science issues resolved

\--- **Chapter 3: Game-breaker** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

It happens sophomore year.

Tony doesn’t even realize it.

He sleeps every day in his room, and his dad is working too hard to bother checking the security cameras. There’s no reason to suspect anything is wrong. When Tony starts feeling a slight pinch in his chest when he is running too hard or kissing too much, he dismisses it as paranoia. With what happened to his mom years ago, a little worry is normal, he thinks.

Tony doesn’t exercise as much, tones down the ‘flirt’ part of the ‘flirt millionaire brilliant classmate’ title, and it goes away.

Or maybe Tony just gets used to it.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

 _To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: Its Bruce  
Message:

_Just clarifying, you’re not going to be soliciting me into going to another nude party of yours, right?_

_\- Bruce_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: Oh you’re alive  
Message:

_Haven’t heard from you in a month, Banner. Why the sudden interest?_

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

_To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_My nerd network says you’re throwing another. Just checking in to make sure there won’t be any threats to my ass regarding this one._

_\- Bruce_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_Oh cute._

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

Tony is actually in no fucking mood for this. He doesn’t want some prissy nobody loser Banner _snarking_ at him and pretending like he and Tony even breathe the same air, and he absolutely isn’t thinking this because his chest has been pinching itself all day and he can barely think over the pain.

 _To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_My ass?_

_\- Bruce_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_I was mad you got valedictorian. Hence, I invited you to one of my parties to fuck with you. In case you missed the myriad of girls laughing at you behind your back, it was pretty fucking successful._

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

Bruce rereads it, eyebrows high. It’s not like he really wanted to talk to Tony—Tony is no one to him—but his mom’s been drilling him on getting more human interaction in his day-to-day regimen, and Tony Stark, amazingly, isn’t the worst company Bruce has had. He scans the message again. Maybe Tony was kidding?

 _To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_you ok kid?_

_\- Bruce_

_To: drbb@gmail.com_  
From: tonystark@starkindustries.net  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_Internet speech isn’t funny. You’re not funny, or fun to be around. Ideally, fuck off and never talk to me again._

_|| Tony Stark <3-_

And that is the game-breaker.

 _To: tonystark@starkindustries.net_  
From: drbb@gmail.com  
Subject: New Message  
Message:

_Jesus fuck you are being serious. Yeah, whatever; fuck you too._

_\- Bruce_

Tony skims it then shuts his laptop in relief. He just wants to be alone.

Bruce spends the rest of the summer alone.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Sophomore year, Tony comes to school in Calvin Klein sunglasses with golden rims and a doctor’s note forged by Jarvis excusing him from any hardcore running when he takes gym next semester. He walks in and the first thing he notices is a tall blond with a queer smile and football jersey that _wasn’t_ there last year two lockers over from his.

Steve Rogers, he learns, fresh from Kentucky, quarterback of the football team, and an all-American jerk-off. What really settles Tony Stark hating the guy is when Tony’s gang of girls crowd around Steve instead of him.

At lunch, they’re still chatting him up. It doesn’t take a genius, Tony thinks, to tell Steve is as pure as apple pie, giving girls that just want one thing respect like they deserve it or something. It’s insane. It leaves Tony avoiding his usual spot in favor of eating outside.

Eating outside is a privilege reserved for the top ten students of each class—the school’s idea of encouragement. Only one other kid is abusing it today.

Bruce glances up from pretending to have a lunch to his visitor. He and Tony think the exact same thing:

_‘Oh, I know that jackass.’_

Though, on a scale of jackass, Bruce ranks significantly lower than Steve Amurica Rogers, so Tony holds his ground and sits across from him at the picnic table.

“Bruce, right?” he asks. It’s bold and with a smirk. Worst case scenario, he drives Bruce out, which will finally give Tony the alone time he needs.

Bruce isn’t particularly elated to see Tony, but he isn’t some oversensitive girl who’s going to cry just because a boy hurt his feelings either. He returns the smirk. “Tony Stark. Long time no see.”

“Few months, huh?”

“Has to be.”

The passive-aggressive air lingers a second before Tony breaks it. “We didn’t exactly end on good terms, though,” Tony sighs. He hates being nice, but he hates the idea of sitting with Captain America more. “Sorry.”

“Who cares? Not like you have a reputation for being nice, anyway.”

Tony smiles with spite. “Runs in the family.” He takes out the brown bag his lunch is in. “Well, the men in the family, at least.”

The comment slips past Bruce when he notices the bag. “Tony Stark uses bag lunches?”

“They’re biodegradable,” Tony says, pulling out a lunch made of food they don’t sell in the US.

“Yeah, sure. Right.”

Tony purses his lips and looks at him. “My dad makes weapons. I think at least one Stark should try to help the world instead of breaking it.” He crumples the bag and chucks it into the mulch under a tree.

Bruce ponders the aggressiveness of the throw, but only says aquiet, “Got it.”

“So where’s your lunch? Rotting the Earth away in a trashcan?”

At his five-story mansion in India with all the other things that don’t exist, Bruce thinks. “I eat quickly.”

“Oh, look! My turn to call you a liar. Lunch just started. Take half of mine; I hate Indian food anyway.”

“Did you say Indian food?” Bruce asks and shamelessly snags the larger half of the entrée. “My absolute favorite. In the world. Ever.”

“Really? Thank god, I’ll bring you leftovers. Our chef thinks getting the ingredients actually from India will make me like their food more. I don’t, and it doesn’t.”

You know, Bruce thinks he may have judged Tony too quickly.

“If you want,” Bruce replies, pretending nonchalance.

“As if you aren’t salivating like Niagara falls at the thought.” Tony tries a bite of curry-stuffed-or-coated-or-whatever peppers and spits it into his hand. “Jesus, it tastes like Satan.”

“You know what Satan tastes like?”

“Definitely. Satan is a temptress, and eating temptresses is one of my specialties.” Tony scrapes the food off his palm into the dirt.

“Satanic cunnilingus," Bruce comments. "Sounds hot."

They last three seconds before breaking down laughing.

“You don’t hold grudges, do you?” Tony asks once they calm down. “To be nice to me now, you can’t.”

“I’ve had nicer people do worse things to me, and you gave me food.” Food is important to someone who doesn’t get to eat every day, Bruce doesn’t add. “You probably just stepped on a gold-plated lego or something.”

“And what makes you think that I’m not just a jerk?”

“Because you find my internet speak _hilarious_.”

“Oh, yes. The approximate four times we talked, I have found you so funny. Definitely.”

“I said hilarious.”

“Shut up, Banner.”

“Don’t—” he starts but glances at the door. “Oh great. People.”

Tony raises a brow. “People?”

“Well, a person at least.”

Tony looks at the doorway and sees Steve Rogers walking through, even though someone who just started and hasn’t gotten their grades yet and shouldn’t be allowed outside. The ass probably just charmed his way past the supervisor. His eyes meet Roger’s, and Roger smiles a wide, honest smile that is absolutely annoying.

“Aaand, Bruce out,” Bruce says and sits up, but Tony reaches across the table and pulls his sleeve.

“You are not leaving me alone with Steve fucking—”

“Tony Stark, right?” Steve asks, approaching him.

“Rogers!” Tony turns around with a smile. “Hi!”

“Smooth,” Bruce says.

“Bruce. Shut up.”

“Um, I’m not interrupting anything am I?” There is an aura of kindness about Steve that tells Bruce instantly they won’t get along. If people are too nice, Bruce feels like shit about himself. Bruce isn’t nice. Not usually. He also has enough introspection to know when the people around him are just going to make him jealous. Still, there’s no reason to be mean to him, a notion Tony clearly doesn’t share.

“What could you possibly be interrupting?” says Tony.

“I don’t know… ” And for the second time that day, Steve sits at Tony’s table. He leans forward on it, glimpses from Bruce to Tony. “A romantic get-away?”

Without missing a beat, Bruce throws his hands up. “Oh shit, Stark. He caught us.” Tony dully slaps Bruce’s face; Bruce dully replies, “Ow.”

“Actually not interrupting anything.” Tony’s cheeks are getting sore from keeping the smile. “Sit down; the more the merrier!”

“Great,” Steve scoots an inch closer to Bruce. The way Bruce side-eyes him tells Tony he isn’t alone in not liking nice people. “Because I thought maybe you didn’t like me? Veronica was saying I kind of ‘stole your thunder’?”

“No, Thor is still very much my thunder, and you would have to try a lot harder to steal my glamour.”

“Ah, Tony,” Bruce cuts in, “if you’re still trying to convince him we are not on a romantic outing, probably don’t use the word ‘glamour.’”

Tony and Steve blatantly ignore him.

“Well, I just wanted to formally introduce myself, and I hope we can get along,” Steve puts his hand out for Tony to shake. Tony stares at it, back to Steve, back to the hand, and then once to Bruce, who nods with a clandestine look, and then finally, Tony returns the shake.

“That is certainly something you can try to do,” Tony says.

Steve leaves, finally, and Tony releases his smile and groans. “I hate nice people.”

“There is no way I can interpret that statement that isn’t an insult to me.”

“Then I’ll do it for you: it wasn’t. It was for Stars 'n Stripes obviously. You’re an okay level of nice.”

“Thanks?”

Bruce finishes the rest of the food and gets up to throw it out. After he sits back down, he comments, “Steve seems like an actually good person. It’s not fair to dislike him.”

“But you don’t like him, clearly.”

“I’m jealous of him. Doesn’t mean I don’t like him.”

“Jealous? Seriously? You just met him. Is it because he’s on the football team? Jesus, you’re not one of those high school happy hour nerds who want nothing more than to be cool, right?”

“Temperature isn’t even a variable, rest assured.”

“That was a shit pun, and why jealous, then?” Tony asks, and the lunch bell rings. “And you better answer before you leave!”

Tony yells it, but Bruce is already at the door, glancing back and smiling once before going inside. The smile makes Tony late to class.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Lunch with Banner doesn’t become a regular thing since Steve drifts from Tony’s crowd into his own enough that the only common friend they have is Thor, and it rains every day for two weeks. But Tony does get Banner’s cell number via email. He learns Bruce hadn’t changed much since they last met other than getting a texting plan on his phone.

_My plan is like a few cents per text so we can’t talk a lot. And emailing is still quicker than texting.  
-Bruce_

_I am sure for someone with a flip phone and no one to talk to, it is.  
|| Tony  <3-_

Then right after:

_I didn’t mean that to be mean.  
|| Tony  <3-_

_I was under the impression we still didn’t like each other.  
-Bruce_

_I like you. You are one of the few people I know who understand the arcane art of not talking too much. God knows I don't. You are also probably one of the only people I know who know what the word ‘arcane’ means. I’m sorry I was a prick earlier. Really, I am.  
|| Tony  <3-_

Bruce doesn’t care because he’s already forgiven Tony. The shift in Tony's grammar doesn't go unnoticed either. Still, Bruce instead focuses on the more exploitable aspects of Tony’s message.

_Shutting up is esoteric?  
-Bruce_

_Your grammar is flawless, fuck me. And yes, it is.  
|| Tony  <3-_

_You propose to every literati?  
-Bruce_

_Jesus, synonyms are like dirty talk to me.  
|| Tony  <3-_

_You aren’t jacking off to my text messages, right? Because I can call you if you are—lot better results. Texting is the lowest form of communication.  
-Bruce_

_Right below email.  
|| Tony  <3-_

_ha_  
-Bruce

_ha  
-Bruce_

_ha  
-Bruce_

_That was funny.  
-Bruce_

_REALLY NOW_  
|| Tony  <3-

_… And, to clarify, I can sort your number under the ‘Friends I Don't Fuck’ section of my phone? Which is only two other people, so feel special. Or, if you find it more expedient, my ‘Bitches’ section has been pretty lonely lately…  
|| Tony  <3-_

_Sure  
-Bruce_

_To bitches or friends?  
|| Tony  <3-_

_Friends ideally  
\- Bruce_

_Okay  
\- Tony_

Bruce almost misses Tony’s signature change, but then he grins at it and doesn’t.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Thereafter, Tony starts finding Bruce at lunch to give him leftovers. This process begins to get awkward when Tony gets creative with where he leaves them. Food scraps begin to appear in Bruce's locker, his desk, the pockets of his backpack, and even his _shoes_ once when he used the school’s workout room during free period. After he throws a sneaker at the side of Tony’s head, the food starts getting dropped off outside at the start of each lunch. They exchange snarky comments for a minute; Bruce says thanks, and Tony makes a smile even his anti-Indian food joke of the day can’t mask. Sometimes they even sit together.

Fortunately, the social caste system isn’t as cruel as movies play it out to be, so Tony doesn’t get shit for occasionally wondering outside to eat somewhere quiet for once, and Bruce’s friends don’t really ask why rich, cool Tony Stark is sitting outside with them.

Bruce does have friends. That change is nice and happens in his 7-person honors History class. Natasha Romonoff and Clint Barton don’t know about the special lunch privileges for honor students. Bruce tells them; they start eating outside together once every few weeks. Natasha’s humor is even dryer than Bruce’s, and Clint has a quirk about him which makes him absolutely birdlike, somehow. When Bruce informs Clint this, Natasha says “if you’re a bird, I’m a bird” to Clint, and though her face is stoic, there is a fondness in her muted sarcasm that isn’t. She then adds, “Though, to be fair, I’ve also slit a bird’s throat and used its feathers for an art project two years ago, so do with it what you will.” Clint’s face becomes the highlight of Bruce’s week.

Most importantly, Bruce doesn’t have an ‘incident’ the whole first semester. No screaming at freshmen or calling teachers ‘cunts’ under his breath. The lack of bruises on his arm, for once, makes gym his second semester a bit more enjoyable. Tony makes the class a _lot_ more enjoyable.

Gym is last period, Tony’s schedule says, and it’s one of those classes he likes no one in other than Bruce and Thor. Mix in Mr. America, Thor's bitch-brother Loki Odinson, and Mr. Odinson as their teacher, and gym class ninety-five percent sucks. Mr. Odinson’s first order of business is making it very clear that he won’t have any shit, and if any gay kids want to change with them like last year, they’re doing it in the equipment closet. And okay, Tony kind of agrees with that, but Steve makes a righteous comment about political correctness which makes Tony agree with Mr. Odinson even more just on principal.

Glaring at Steve, Mr. Odinson says, “None of you shits are telling me that if you got to change in a room full of girls, you wouldn’t enjoy from the show. Those queer kids follow same philosophy. Them liking guys doesn't give them any excuse for the peep show any horny teenage boy, gay or straight, would happily abuse. And any gay girls get the same treatment. End of sentence.”

Queer is a little harsh, Tony thinks, but the tension in the gym is way too thick so instead of saying anything that might be mistaken for something else, he just lets out a cough and raises his hand.

“Excuse me, Mr. O., but I have suddenly become the gay, and will have to change in the woman’s locker room exclusively for the rest of my life starting right now. The equipment closet just has too many balls for me not to look.” Steve crosses his arms; Bruce guffaws, and Mr. Odinson gives Tony a day’s detention for being a 'smartass'.

While Tony huffs, Bruce whispers in an exaggerated low voice, “And one detention to Mr. Odinson, too, for fucking abhorrent language.”

They chuckle until they notice Mr. Odinson leering over them, arms crossed. He and Bruce only end up with a week’s detention, which Tony considers totally worth it.

Detention isn’t so bad, Bruce thinks, considering that Tony spends the entirety of it rewiring Bruce’s phone so it uses free WiFi instead of cash-per-text data to send messages. Bruce ends the week with Clint, Natasha, Tony, and this odd Thor kid's numbers in his contacts and in an incessant back-and-forth communication with Tony that eventuates in Bruce being invited to Stark manor for the second time.

_Question: scientifically, how screwed would you be to try to replicate Iron Man’s suit?  
-Tony_

_You want to recreate iron man?  
-Bruce_

_Not yet. For now, I wanna make a mini-robot action figure that works the same as Anthony’s suit does. Maybe better. How fucked am I?  
-Tony_

_I have an old iron man figure with the anatomy pretty spot on if you’re being serious. You could use the sizing as a reference to make your own model, and build up from there. But fair warning: I’m not much of an engineer so if anything spontaneously combusts, don’t blame me.  
-Bruce_

_A doll? I would have never thought to use one; that’s brilliant! Bring it over my house next chance you get, Bruce.  
-Tony_

_1\. It’s not a doll. It's an action figure. 2. Sure but only if I get second dibs on working on it. I’m a bigger Anthony Marks fan than you anyway, and I need someone to science with.  
-Bruce_

_You just used science as a verb. There is someone other than me who uses science as a verb, hell YES you may help me. But it’s going to be pretty technical. Probably boring.  
-Tony_

_How is technical boring?  
-Bruce_

Tony smiles and shakes his head because what were the odds Banner, of all people, actually spoke science?

_It’s not. Be over at seven tomorrow?  
-Tony_

_Wouldn’t miss it.  
-Bruce _

Saturday morning, Bruce re-combs his hair once more before leaving for Stark manor. The building seems even bigger than last time, and when he rings the doorbell he swears he can hear it echoing.

After a minute, the door is answered, and it isn’t by a maid or Tony or that odd chef that insists Tony likes foreign foods. It’s opened by Tony Stark’s father.

Now, Bruce shouldn’t be as surprised as he is that the _owner of the house_ answered the door, but that logic doesn’t stop him from swallowing hard and stammering.

“Mr. Stark, um! Hi. I’m Bruce. Banner, I mean; Bruce Banner. A friend of Tony’s. I’m supposed to be coming over right—” Bruce looks at the dollar-store watch on his wrist— “now.”

Howard’s face looks exhausted. He isn’t smiling or glowing like when he’s on the cover of People Magazine or the New York Times. His face is contorted into a frown frown and there are dark circles under his eyes that have clearly been there a few days.

“Tony can’t see people right now.”

“Oh, he can’t? I mean, not that that isn’t perfectly okay. I can come back later or never. Never is cool too; never is great!”

Mr. Stark laughs but it’s humorless. “Calm down. I’m glad Tony has a friend his own gender, for once. He just isn’t home and won’t be for a few days.”

Bruce thinks for a minute that Tony was just kidding about the whole them being friends thing and that this was all some elaborate scheme to prank him. But the notion’s ridiculous because his life isn’t Mean Girls and no one would ever put that much thought into a joke, or into Bruce Banner in general either, he thinks.

“So, where is he, then? Tony, I mean. He didn’t tell me he was going anywhere.”

“It wasn’t planned; he didn’t blow you off if that’s what you’re stammering over.”

Bruce is glad to hear that Tony didn’t ditch him. He really does want to go sciencing with Stark—the younger one—and, okay, maybe Bruce raised Tony’s friend level to ‘best’ in the last few weeks, but it wasn’t like Tony had a lot of competition. Natasha and Clint had just left to spend a semester in Paris on an exchange program, and even if they hadn’t, Bruce still would have liked Tony the best.

“Oh. Then, respectfully, could I know where he is?” Bruce asks.

Howard pauses a minute before answering: “The hospital. The machine I built to regulate his heart beat and keep his blood circulating malfunctioned, so blood flow slowed and stopped in one of his arteries.”

Bruce’s mom is a nurse. Bruce knows what can happen when blood doesn’t flow right. Fatigue, brain damage, lack of balance, limbs falling off.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony really hates hospitals. He hates amnesia and fake-nice nurses and, mostly, he hates that the same doctor who killed his mom is about to try to fix him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter was insanely fun to write. Plenty of science bros interaction, now with bonus science, and a few more Avengers and Marvel characters pop in this time around. Like usual, cliff-hanger ending, but I should have the next chapter up soon if all goes well.


	4. Mom Quit

\--- **Chapter 4: Mommy Quit** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

 _A little paranoia was normal,_ Tony had thought. _Ignore it and it will go away._ Tony was being stupid then, and as the anesthetic starts to take effect he can’t help but wonder if mom had felt the same way with her condition.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

“Oh my god, will he be alright?” Bruce asks.

“Don’t know, but I need to be alone right now. I’ll tell you if anything happens.”

He ushers Bruce a step from the door and slams it shut. Howard doesn’t have a way to contact him if ‘anything’ happens, Bruce knows, but he lets Howard go anyway after waiting a few seconds in vain for the door to reopen.

The days are shorter now, Bruce realizes walking home. As the last glimpses of sunlight sink behind the skyscrapers, it hits him hard.

Tony’s probably going to die.

Whoever said hatred was the darkest feeling must have never felt worry before because as Bruce walks home all he can see is black. Black night, black mind, and black blood in his best friend’s veins. Anxiety pricks his head like an insect. He has an urge to punch his arm.

When he reaches his apartment, Bruce stumbles up the stairs and falls onto his couch face down in a pillow just like his mom always sleeps.

Bruce really wishes his mom would come home early. The work she does on staff at a nonprofit healthcare organization is all long hours and no pay. Still, whenever Bruce feels upset about his three-room house, he thinks of the emaciated kids that aren’t supposed to exist in America smiling for probably the first time in months because his mom just saved their daddy.

Of the three rooms in his and his mom’s apartment, the kitchen, the living room, and the bedroom (each floor of his complex has communal bathroom stalls and shower areas), Bruce’s mom insisted he take the bedroom after he got too big to share it with her. She was anal about him not messing up his ‘growing, young boy spine’ by sleeping on a couch. Sighing at the memory, Bruce lugs himself off the couch and trudges into his room to sleep.

He should have asked Howard for more information. Bruce doesn’t know if Tony will be okay; he barely knows what’s wrong with him. Don’t you die if blood flow stops? Maybe Howard meant something else. Bruce thought Tony had a regular pacemaker, maybe, but Howard made it seem like it was something much different. If it was, it could have explained why Tony was so sensitive over the issue, and why his scars were by his femoral artery instead of on his chest as in normal pacemaker implants. (Though Bruce’s mom had done implants both through femoral and chest before.)

Yet, as he drifts into an uneasy sleep, all Bruce can wonder is what could have possibly happened to make Tony’s device malfunction so severely.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - ------- - - - - - -

“Okay, guys,” Steve starts, looking from Loki to Thor. “I have good news and bad news.” They are gathered in Thor’s room after school, Loki laying on the bed and Thor in the beanbag. Steve is standing in front of them, shuffling his feet. Loki looks up.

“Bad news first,” Loki says. “So it’s less dramatic.”

“Okay, that works well considering I didn’t actually have good news… Alright.” Steve takes a breath in. “I may or may not have, accidentally, by no fault of my own and completely not on purpose, put Tony in the hospital. By mistake.”

“Really?” Loki peers up from the magazine he is reading. “Nice work.”

“Brother!” Thor yells. “Establish fairer sympathies forthright! And Steve, most certainly you did not hospitalize Brother Stark?”

Steve rubs the back of his neck. He feels like the absolute biggest jackass in the world, and probably _is_. “Not on purpose! I mean, it was afterschool yesterday at Veronica’s pool party, and Tony was on his phone texting someone, so I joked that he was being a computer geek, and then he said ‘yeah right’ and that he could beat me in something sporty, so we decided to race around the block—friendly challenge—and, I mean, I am on the football team, and Stark does, like, nothing physical so I don’t expect him to bolt forward like he does, so I start bombing it—”

“Steve. Use periods. When you’re. Talking,” Loki says slowly. “You’re not making any sense, and with me having to translate _Don Quixote_ over here, I don’t have time to decipher what you’re spewing too.”

“Gah!” Steve exclaims, gesturing his hands. “Fine, fine. Me and Tony were racing each other, and I guess he has asthma or something because, halfway through he just stopped and passed out. Literally, passed out.”

“Oh, good. I thought you meant he metaphorically passed out.”

“Loki, let me finish! Either way, so Tony just passes out, and I call 911 and then his house to leave a message for Tony’s dad. So an eternity later the ambulance comes and oh GOD I messed up!”

“That’s a pretty creative way to murder someone, actually. I personally would have gone with death by shark, though. Much more interesting.”

“I didn’t kill him! Yeesh, Thor, say _something_ to calm me down!”

Thor stares at the floor, pensive then says, “It is most odd you would challenge Brother Stark to a running event, with consideration to his condition.”

“Wait, he actually does have asthma? Jesus Christ, that makes it even worse!”

Loki laughs. “Stark doesn’t have asthma. He has this insanely rare heart condition.”

“No,” Steve says.

“Yeah, it usually isn’t _that_ bad, but, like, it’s still a heart problem, so I guess running so fast—”

“No, no, no—”

“—With you messed him up—”

“ _Jesus,_ no _—_ ”

“—And his heart gave out,” Loki finishes.

“No!” Steve throws his arms up in their air first and then over his own face in anguish. “God, hell, why doesn’t anyone tell me these things?!”

“Most people don’t know. Apparently, it’s a sensitive subject or something.” Loki flips another page.

Steve collapses on the bed next to him, face down in a pillow. “What have I done?”

“Well, killed Tony, for one thing.” Steve pushes himself and deadpans at Loki. “What? You asked a question; I answered.”

“Loki—wait. How do you know that Tony has a heart thingy? He hates you worse than he hates me.” Steve pauses. “I think?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, and I actually know everything about everyone. For example,” Loki points at Thor, “Professor Chivalry sings opera better than he plays a linebacker, and you sometimes where woman’s underwear because it’s ‘comfier.’”

“I do not!” Thor and Steve yell.

“Thor, I’m your brother—um. Was your brother. Past tense.” A flash of emotion passes over the Odinsons’ faces. Steve suddenly feels intrusive. “Ahem. What I mean is, Steve can deny the truth all he wants, but you, Thor, I have heard you belting out in the shower, when cooking, cleaning, jogging and pretty much every other mundane activity.”

“My operatic abilities are of no concern to you, and even if they are, then it’s certainly not of your concern to share them!”

“Wow, look. Five seconds and me and you are fighting again.” Thor shoots Loki a look. “What? I like fighting. It suits us.”

Thor starts to say something when Steve groans. “Aren’t we supposed to be dealing with the fact that I may have killed one of the richest kids on the face of the Earth? Your stupid brotherhood rivalries can wait for the next meet-up.”

“Two things: one, me and Thor don’t have any ‘brotherhood rivalries', and, two, if Tony’s dead, he’s not on the Earth anymore. Problems solved.”

“Loki, stop talking.” Steve bites his lip. “Okay,” he decides, standing up from the bed and nodding to himself. “I have a plan. Tony’s friends with that Bruce person, right? From gym? I bet he knows what is going on.”

“Try again, Dr. America. Thor’s friends with Tony, too, and Tony didn’t tell him anything.” Steve starts to say something when Loki sighs loudly and takes out his phone. “Bruce Banner, right? What do you want me to text him?”

“How in Earth did you get Bruce’s number? He doesn’t even know you.”

“I know everything, remember?” Steve starts to reply but then gives up and stops himself. Loki continues, “Okay, sending ‘u hav any idea wats wron w tony?’ I presume that is how one is expected to text, right? I really only do phone calls myself.”

“To questionable persons,” Thor adds off-handed. Now Steve feels _very_ intrusive.

“Um, haha, yeah. People text different ways. And thanks,” Steve says, trying to split the tension. There’s a minute of silence with Loki glancing from his phone to Thor, Thor fiddling with his hair, and Steve wishing he was anyone else in the world. Except maybe Tony. Oh god.

_u hav any idea wats wron w tony?_

_You’re lab partners with a popular girl once and suddenly everyone knows your number; before I answer, who is this?  
\- Bruce_

Steve jumps up and leans over Loki’s shoulder. Thor pops up to join them, probably as happy as Steve is for the distraction. “By certain we are acquaintances of Tony!”

“Yeah, tell him we’re Tony’s friends.”

_two of tony’s worst enemies and thor_

“Brother, that hardly seems helpful—”

“ _No_ t your brother anymore,” Loki interrupts in almost a snarl. He sends the next message before Thor or Steve can reply, reading it aloud along with Bruce’s replies.

_Let’s play the how well do I know tony game: you guys are probably steve and maybe loki or … hmm… guess I lose?  
\- Bruce_

_its loki n steve n thor. u kno tony pretty well. u know whats happenin to him?_

_Try asking it again in a full sentence, and I might.  
\- Bruce_

_What’s happening to Tony, jackass?_

_Progress! But no, I don’t know what really went down or what is currently going down, and even if I did, I don’t think tony would want me telling you two.  
\- Bruce_

_Steve is having a panic attack. Tony had collapsed when they were racing, and now Steve thinks he killed him. Don’t play the ‘not telling you!’ card._

Bruce stops.

_you tell me what happened and I’ll tell you what’s happening  
\- Bruce_

_Deal_

Loki abridges the story for him, giving Bruce the gist of what happened. It sends Bruce into another wave of panic. If Tony collapsed because his heart wasn’t working right under stress—maybe it couldn’t pump blood fast enough to carry oxygen to the brain–then was it more or less dangerous? It may mean that there wasn’t a mechanical dysfunction in the device, just that Tony’s heart was too weak, and the device needed to be stronger.

Or Tony could be dead right now, and Bruce won’t know until it’s in the papers or the rumour mill at school tomorrow. There is a small fan in Bruce’s room. Bruce is suddenly aware of how loud it is. He doesn’t reply to Loki, instead lying back in his bed. It’s soft, comforting and warm even though the blankets aren’t very thick. The scream of the fan eventually exhausts him, and he falls asleep. He doesn’t dream.

Two hours later, Bruce wakes up feeling unrested and groggy. He makes coffee and browses stupid things on the internet to make the droning go away. His fan is still too loud, and if he turns it off, the lights are too bright or that one lock of hair won’t stay in place on his forehead again. Bruce shuts his laptop. Then his phone buzzes. Bruce slaps his forehead, realizing that he probably brought down the wrath of Loki during his nap and—

_Sorry I ditched you. Got a lovely date with a shit doctor and MALE nurse, though.  
\- Tony_

The sound of relief, Bruce learns, is his ringtone. His senses regulate, and he lets out a gulp of air he didn’t want to admit he was holding and sends a reply instantly.

_Your ok! wat happend?  
\- Bruce_

_What happened to my sexy synonym man? And I’m FINE, Rogers just made me race him and I guess my heart thing couldn’t take it.  
\- Tony_

_Jesus, Tony. If your ‘heart thing’ couldn’t take it, why would you try?  
\- Bruce_

_Because clearly it was my INTENT to pass out! Love being at the hospital they slaughtered my mom in; always a good time.  
\- Tony_

Tony really wishes there is an ‘edit – undo’ option for sending messages. Bruce’s reply comes a few minutes late.

_Alright, if I ask you to explain, will you? It’s okay to tell me to fuck off  
\- Bruce_

Tony glances around the recovery room. The machine in his heart had just needed a little tweaking; the doctor finished it in an hour, though the doctor fixing and or examining his artery where the blood had stopped for an instant (thank God the machine had a backup routine) had taken four times as long. Apparently, the machine had malfunctioned due to some electronic interference and his heart thrumming too fast. His body had passed out from shock. There wasn’t any brain damage or stoke, which Tony guesses he should feel happy for. He still feels like shit.

He should probably call his dad. Tony doesn’t want to fucking call his fucking dad. He shuffles his iPhone around in his hand, the iPod adjusted it so it wouldn’t affect the new metal pulsing in his chest. Howard had ditched him two hours after Tony had gotten here. He doesn’t deserve Tony’s word, plus they’ll have all the time in the world together when Howard bunks them up in some high-end hotel while the electronics in Stark manor are updated for Tony’s device. That could take months. Tony wishes he had something to drink.

A doctor pops in with a smile and reminds Tony to call his dad whenever Tony feels up for it.

Tony flips her off after she leaves. He doesn’t listen to her; doesn’t call him. Correction: doesn’t _fucking_ call him. Instead, Tony rereads Bruce’s message, taking a minute to decide before typing a response.

_My dad had this very skilled doctor taking care of my mom since she had an insanely rare heart condition. Her heart was too small and weak for her body, so every six months or so, she would have to surgically have more heart tissue added, hopefully until her heart was normal. Or something like that. More of a physics than a bio guy._

_Anyhow, during one of the implants, our doctor fucked up and my mom died on the operating table. My dad wouldn’t fire the guy either since he was ‘the only one’ who knew how to deal with mom’s bad genetics which I guess the guy had designed his own PHD at Yale and all that, but FUCK that if we were ever letting this jackass doctor do_ that _surgery on anyone again, so my dad designed a device for me with help from his higher-up medical friends so my shit heart can actually circulate blood to my body and strengthen my tissues and all that. Doctor Kill-Little only had to put it in me, then he was out of my life for good save some checkups twice a year.  
\- Tony_

_Tl;dr— whenever I have heart issues, I have to look my mom’s murderer in the fucking face. Maybe dad forgave him but fuck if I did.  
\- Tony_

_Jesus Christ, Tony. Do you need to call me?  
\- Bruce_

_Basically. And you wish I’d call you, Banner ;) But, bright side, the doctor works quick when he isn’t slaughtering his patients, so I’ll be out by tomorrow, but me and my dad have to bunk in some hotel together while all the electronics are rewired in our house. I don’t want to stay with my dad, at all! :-(  
\- Tony_

_…Did you just frowney-face at me? Seriously? After telling me all THAT you frowney-face?  
\- Bruce_

_:-( My dad is going to stress me out again. I really can’t deal with stress right now or my heart will fuck up and all have to see dr. murder again.  
\- Tony_

_That doctor didn’t kill your mom. He or she was trying his/her hardest to save her. Her heart condition is what killed her. You can’t get revenge on a person, but you can on a condition like that. If you killed the doctor, you wouldn’t feel any better, but if you found a cure for whatever killed your mom, you would. Hating people never ends well.  
\- Bruce_

_Wow, do go on, Plato.  
\- Tony_

_I am trying to be helpful.  
\- Bruce_

_You’re emulating what you see in chick flicks because the media has your brain wired. I don’t want helpful, Bruce. I want someone I can rant to that will mindlessly agree with me  
\- Tony_

_Well, ruminating in hatred or stressing won’t fix anything. I would know.  
\- Bruce_

_HA. Right. Bruce, you may be sarcastic, but you are the nicest, most low-maintenance person I know. You don’t hate anyone, not even captain amurica or Loki fucking Odinson, and the idea of seeing you stressed out or raging is kind of hilarious.  
\- Tony_

Someone just called Bruce low-maintenance. Bruce actually laughs as he messages back:

_Oh my God I am so not low-maintenance, it is absurd... But this isn’t about me. It’s about you.  
\- Bruce_

_Okay, fine. I like talking about me. I just can’t handle being around my dad right now. He is going to lecture me about the doctor and mom and responsibility and all that glorious crap I HATE, and he is probably going to want to spend time with me like and pretend like he gives a shit if I am healing right and just UGH. I wish I could stay anywhere else.  
\- Tony_

Bruce starts to wonder if Tony is hinting at what Bruce thinks he’s hinting at.

_You can’t stay at my place.  
\- Bruce_

_What? I know that, I was planning on just complaining until I ran out of steam, or you told me to fuck off, actually. Staying at your house would imply me attempting to solve a problem instead of just basking in it.  
\- Tony_

_Right. Because you can’t stay at my house.  
\- Bruce_

_I know. I wasn’t asking.  
\- Tony_

_I mean, we have literally three rooms. The showers are communal and broken half the time. I used a hose most of freshmen year._  
\- Bruce  


_My dad can pay to have those fixed if I ask. And, seriously. I wasn’t implying that. I know you don’t like people at your house.  
\- Tony_

_Above that, I’d have to sleep on the floor or you would. We don’t have a spare couch, we very rarely have food. It would be a trainwreck.  
\- Bruce_

_Bruce?  
-Tony_

_And my mom would be so insanely awkward if I had a friend stay over and probably embarrass the crap out of both of us  
\- Bruce_

_Okay, now it kind of sounds like you of want me to stay over.  
\- Tony_

_I am literally explaining why that would be a TERRIBLE idea!!!  
\- Bruce_

_Oh, I am so crashing at your place now. You walked me right into that.  
\- Tony_

_I didn’t literally do anything, and it definitely wasn’t leading you to my house since you obviously can’t stay here.  
\- Bruce_

_I’ll pay for everyone’s food.  
\- Tony_

_WELCOME ABOARD!!  
\- Bruce_

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

“Steve, I don’t think staring at my phone is going to make Banner reply any quicker,” Loki says, now sitting upside-down in a beanbag next to Thor. Steve is on the bed trying to staring at Loki’s phone in an attempt to speed-up time.

“It’s been hours! What if Tony is dead and he isn’t telling us? Oh my god, I’m a murderer!”

“Come on, Steve. Be optimistic: you’re _probably_ not a murderer. Yet.”

“I hate you, Loki.”

“Fair enough,” Loki states with a shrug then scoots an inch further from Thor, who had started leaning against him. Steve is about to yell something when there is a beep from Loki’s phone. He scrambles to accept the message and reads it.

_Tony’s fine. But, he says he wants to have a ‘talk’ with whoever told you all he had heart issues.  
\- Bruce_

_OH THANK JESUS…_

_Going to work under the assumption that was Steve.  
\- Bruce_

_:-) it was  
_

_WHY THE SMILIE, WHY.  
\- Bruce_

Steve is so ecstatic he is jumping off the walls and into the bed, bouncing and laughing. After he has sufficiently filled his quota for acting like a four year old for the day, he puts an arm around both the Odinsons and lays back, smiling in inexorable relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Well, thanks for all the comments and favorites and kudos, everyone! Comments always mean so much to me—in fact, I got the idea for what Bruce’s mom does based off of coming up with an answer for a commentor’s question.
> 
> I envision Thor is a modern-day Don Quixote. For those of you who don’t know who that is, it is the self-assigned knightly title of the protagonist from the novel Don Quixote. In it, the protagonist is obsessed with literature he has read about chivalrous knights, and from such literature, develops the persona of such a night. Don Quixote rides into the night, intent to be the hero he has convinced himself the world needs.
> 
> Of course, Don Quixote gets the ever-loving shit beaten out of him by sane people roughly every chapter as his delusion gets progressively more and more outrageous. Hilarious book I really need to get around to finishing, and you, if you haven’t already, need to get starting!
> 
> This fic is about to be drenched in Stanner in about a chapter, so just hold on till then!
> 
> Enjoy!


	5. Un-Situational

\--- **Chapter 5: Un-situational** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Bruce’s mom is ecstatic. She actually takes the day off from the hospital to clean the house (though, cleaning three rooms can only take so long) then takes Bruce out to eat afterwards. She tells him about her latest patients and about how the department is getting bigger and bigger each day. Bruce listens eagerly. He’s missed his mom’s voice. It is nice to hear it when he does.

Tony is set to arrive at 7:00PM. Bruce’s mom’s waitressing shift starts at eight, giving them forty or so minutes to get everything situated. He texts Tony asking if he should wait outside, but Tony says he will knock on the door.

Bruce is nervous. He has been nervous. Tony’s going to hate his house. It’s poor and run-down and the polar opposite of what Tony’s used to. Tony will hate the house and then hate Bruce vicariously through it. Or, if not the house, Bruce is sure Tony will hate being around him full-time. Tony hasn’t triggered Bruce’s anger yet, but everyone does eventually. Bruce looks at his mom at the thought. His mom can’t stop fiddling with her hair, wanting to look nice for Tony’s father so maybe Tony will actually stay here and enjoy it. 7:00PM comes quickly and Bruce counts each second Tony is late until his mom puts a hand on his shoulder. He turns around to see her usually-tired face shining with a kind, warm smile.

“Relax, Honey,” she says like soft blankets.

And Bruce does.

The drive out of the hospital is pure torture. Howard tries to engage Tony in a conversation and brings up the ‘M’ word. Tony can’t believe he has the nerve actually fucking bring up Mom, and of course Howard does it just as they’re pulling into what looks like the worst apartment complex in New York. Tony manages a sharp insult at his father before the car fully stops. Getting out of the car, they both slam the door. It’s childish, but Tony doesn’t care. Childish means he gets to actually pretend he’s someone’s child, for once.

The scuffle with his dad, though, reminds Tony just how much he owes Bruce for letting him stay here. A car ride with his dad is out of the question, let alone however long it will take to update Stark mansion’s devices. Tony doesn’t care where he stays as long as it isn’t with his father, and with how poor Bruce’s joint looks, Tony doubts his father will risk a visit all too much (ever.)

But Howard pretends to care, like he usually does. Tony thinks it’s just so his dad can sleep better at night. “Tony, this place looks dangerous. That last door had bullet holes in it.”

“Well, I’m not staying behind _that_ door, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

They reach Bruce’s apartment door, 302, and Tony knocks. His dad has a scrutinizing look that makes Tony really hope Bruce was exaggerating about the three rooms and communal showers. Howard has to like the place at least a little or he might not let Tony stay.

There is a brief pause after Tony knocks where Bruce doesn’t answer, and Tony is sure Howard is thinking Bruce is some impolite ghetto kid Tony is just hanging out with for pot hook-ups or to piss Howard off. Then Bruce answers the door, looking a little more put-together than usual, hair combed more neatly, no stains on his shirt. Bruce looks up at Howard. Howard actually smiles at him.

What?

“Bruce, hello. It’s nice to see you again.”

“You also, Mr. Stark.” Bruce’s mom runs up to the door. Tony gets a look at her. She is tall and lanky with brown eyes and the same tired face he’s seen on Bruce so many times. Bruce shuffles aside as his mom steps out. “This would be my mother.”

Howard looks at her, and Ms. Banner grins and shakes his hand excitedly. “Hello, yes. I am Bruce’s mom, parental guardian officiado of la casa de Banner. And you must be Tony’s father? It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Tony gives her bonus points for not treating his dad like a celebrity like most people do, but Tony can tell Howard thinks she is a little offline.

“You also,” Howard says with a forced grin. “So, um, Mrs. Banner—”

“Oh, it’s Ms. Banner. I’m divorced,” she says, smile unwavering and wiggling her ring finger.

Howard nods. “Right, of course. So, my son wanted to stay here while our home was renovated, and—”

“Right, yes. I know all about that.” She really needs to stop interrupting Howard, Tony thinks. The annoyed look on Howard’s face shows that he agrees. “Bruce told me that your son will need a place to stay for a few weeks while the electronics in your home are tuned for his condition. Ah, right! I am also a nurse, certified, so I am fully qualified to be watching your son. I could even give him open heart surgery if he needed it, haha. But hopefully he won’t—need it, that is!” she says and Tony looks at Bruce, and they exchange a look of how much a train-wreck this turning out to be. Tony braces for impact, but Howard is silent. “Mr. Stark? Are you alright?”

Howard looks at Tony, something soft and curious in his eyes. Tony raises a brow, confused.

“You told them about your heart?” he asks.

Howard is amazed. Tony has never willingly told anyone about his condition. He lied about it to Howard (it’s nothing dad, just heart burn, I hate something funny), to his friends, even to the first string of doctors he had, and still does lie about it. Always. Howard looks at Bruce, wondering what this trashy little kid who looks like the antithesis of who Tony normally hangs out with could have possibly done to get Tony to open up like that. His son interrupts his thoughts, though. Howard had forgotten he’d asked Tony a question.

“Um, yeah. I mean, kind of.”

“Kind of?” Bruce asks. “You spilled your life story to me over _text message_.”

“It was not my _life_ story!”

“Right.”

“Okay, you know what Bruce Tapestry—”

“The place looks lovely,” Howard says. Tony and Bruce stop bickering. “I am sure Tony will enjoy his stay here very much.” Tony looks at Bruce, dumbfounded. His dad continues, “I will be sending checks for his bills weekly, but this is a little upfront payment for your troubles.” He hands her an envelope. “Enclosed is also a list containing my phone number, Tony’s doctor’s, emergency contacts and a copy of the doctor’s medical report and advice for Tony’s recovery weeks: no lifting anything over ten pounds, keep sodium intake low, etcetera.”

Bruce’s mom stares at the envelope before taking it. “Alright. I promise to take care of your son, and if I don’t, Bruce will, right?” she says, laughing and nudging her son. Bruce smiles, awkward and embarrassed, and Tony thinks it looks kind of adorable for a _guy_ smiling. “Though, really. I’ll keep him safe.”

Howard nods. “I’m sure you will.”

They all work together hauling an indeterminate amount of time’s worth of luggage up to the apartment. When they are done, Howard and Ms. Banner shake hands a final time before Howard leaves and waves them off almost-fondly. Bruce’s family and tony drag the suitcases through the door, and Bruce shuts it.

Tony lets out a huge sigh. “Oh my god, I could have sworn my dad was going to veto this.”

“Yeah, well, good thing he didn’t,” Bruce says. He looks at the clock. “Oh, crap. Mom, it’s 7:50.”

“Is is?” she says. “Okay, shoot, well I love you Bruce, and you and Tony have a nice time. You two better be asleep by the time I get home or else expect some hardcore parenting, hardcore being disconnecting the internet for a day, of course.”

Bruce grins and throws her her coat from the floor as she stumbles out the door, a piece of bread in her mouth for dinner and her waitress garb in a bag to change into in the car. Bruce shuts it again, and he and Tony are alone.

They are quiet for a bit. Bruce strolls back to the couch and sits next to him. “So.”

“So,” Tony echoes. “You really do only have three rooms.”

“Yeap.”

“No TV?”

“The twelve free channels our landlord provides everyone.”

“Internet?”

“Neighbor’s WiFi doesn’t have encryption.”

“Splendid.”

The silence returns. Bruce coughs. “Uh, I kind of did warn you, you know. It’s not much of a place. I mean, I think my entire house is the size of your closest.”

“Size of my mother’s old shoe closet, maybe,” Tony replies with a laugh. “Speaking of moms, yours seems nice. Eccentric, but nice.”

“That’s what most people say about her. She works hard, though. She can only ever be not-serious when she’s off the clock. Jokes and her… clientele don’t mix really well. Not the day-time clients, at least.”

“Right, right, I get it.” A pause. Tony glances at the door. “And I just realized maybe I don’t know you that well. Probably should have stayed with my dad a week and just came over here a lot or had you come over. You know, familiarize myself with what you’re like out of school, then encroach myself into your home.”

Bruce laughs. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re too shy to be around me.”

Tony gasps in fake theatrics. “Why I? Shy? Never! Nervous, though? Nervous I could be.”

“Alright, Yoda. But still, if you want to get to know me out of school, living with me is a pretty good way to do it. And I think I’m nervous enough for the both of us.”

“Point, though completely ridiculous, taken.”

Bruce shrugs. “I’m sure your dad wouldn’t mind if you had a change of heart.”

“Change of heart? Really, Bruce? You have word it like that after what Mr. Doctor did to me yesterday?” Tony says seriously, and lets the color drain awkwardly from Bruces face before chuckling.

“You are a terrible person, Tony!” Bruce says.

“I have also never joked about that before.” Tony stops. “Or told anyone, really.”

“Correction.” Bruce sticks his pointer finger up and gestures at his chest. “I figured it out my own. Pacemaker, electronics, me seeing you naked, remember?”

“I meant about my mom and what I really have going on. Pacemaker’s the understatement of the year, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, it’s good to have someone to talk to. Secrets mess you up.” With all that Bruce is keeping, he knows this well. “If you keep them secret, that is.”

“Right. Oh, by the way, do you need me to go food shopping later?” Tony asks. “Your mom doesn’t seem like the type with a lot of spare time for groceries.”

“Yes, but I’ll go with you. It can be an adventure.”

“Food shopping?”

“Adventurous food shopping,” Bruce corrects. “But, my mom stocked up the fridge before you came, and your dad’s check can cover what she spent, so we’re good for a few days.” Tony nods and Bruce remembers something. “Oh, right! Hey, we never did get down to work on that iron man robot you wanted to make.”

Tony’s face lights up. “Jesus, you really _are_ excited about that. I thought you were just egging me on over the phone.”

“You’re joking me, right? Science is my _thing_. Do you have any tools with you? We don’t have much here other than forks, knives and baking soda.” Bruce realizes how much poorer his house is than Tony’s. There is no way Tony will actually enjoy it here. They’ll need to spend a lot of time out of the house, and Bruce doesn’t know anything fun to do that doesn’t happen in his room or on the internet.

“Mr. Banner, do not underestimate me. Of course I have my tools. Portable lab-to-go, actually,” Tony says and ducks away to one of his bags in the corner. He unzips it and tugs out a black tool box. Back at the couch, Tony sits down, sets the box on his lap and opens it. “Candyland’s top floor at my house, but you can get a nice spoonful of sugar just in here. Check it out and drool, Banner.”

Bruce leans toward him to see it, his arm and thigh pressing against Tony’s. “It is beautiful. I am not worthy.” The box has an array of small tools—a mini welding torch, screwdrivers, hammers, wires, adapters, blueprint paper. It’s a small start, but he and Tony can go shopping later for whatever else they need. “Is there anything on those blueprint papers?”

“As of?” Tony turns to him. Because of the way they are sitting, his face is right in Bruce’s, and Tony shuffles back with a ‘woah, sorry’ and continues after a second, “Not yet. I was waiting to check out that doll you had.”

“Action figure,” Bruce asserts.

“D-O-double-L, _doll_.”

Bruce chuckles and sits up. “Fine. But you’re the one that wants to robotically recreate said ‘doll.’”

“Bruce, please. When I was six, I made my friend Pepper’s Cabbage patch shoot laser lights from its eyes.”

“Oh, she must have loved you.”

Tony pauses. “She used to.”

Bruce realizes he hit a nerve. “Sensitive subject, got it. I have mine too. So, um, iron man, it was?”

“Actually, it is pretty dark out. We’re skipping school tomorrow, so want to just go to sleep and get a fresh start then?”

The problem with anxiety is the second anything goes out-of-plan, it attacks. Bruce is such an absolute idiot. He’s already hosting a _Stark_ in the shittiest ghetto house New York has to offer, and then he manages screws up Science, the one tie of normalcy he could have given Tony in this new home, just like that. Bruce thinks of all the things he should have replied with and feels worse with each one. _She must have loved you._ What was Bruce thinking? The thoughts continue even as he replies, “Sure. There’s only one bed here, though.”

“Oh, no need for that. I may be rich, but I’m not beyond sleeping on a couch. One too many nights at lady’s houses made me very versatile, know what I mean?” he adds with a nudge. Bruce doesn’t particularly want to know what Tony means, and he doesn’t get how Tony could go from being upset to jocular just like that. Or maybe he never was upset and Bruce is just being paranoid and ruining everything again.

And he is about to ruin everything even worse. “That won’t work. My mom sleeps there. When I said one bed I meant—“ Bruce looks away, embarrassment piling on to every other emotion he has, “—I mean we only have one bed in the entire house. Not that we just have one spare bed. I’ll just sleep on the floor or something,” he adds quickly.

Something like sympathy flashes in Tony’s eyes, which is just _great_ because now Tony will probably only be his pity friend for the next however, if he even stays here that long. Bruce can manage people not liking him, but pity? Pity is untenable. “Your family really is poor,” Tony says.

“I said you shouldn’t stay here. Sorry.”

Tony waits a minute before smirking. “Well, Welfare-checks, it’s too bad you’re stuck with me. Let’s go to the street corner to beg for something to buy a bed with. I’ll even let you cut out my eyeballs so we can make a better due.”

Bruce’s mind blanks a minute. “Did you just call me ‘Welfare-checks’? As a nickname?”

“Would you prefer Slumdogs?”

Bruce’s mouth goes from open wide to a toothy smile. “Okay, you know what, _Tax-cuts_ , I think you need to remember who you stepped on to get to top, ‘kay?”

“Right, like Cinderella is in any position to be telling me what to do.”

“You’re calling me Cinderella? Does that make you the queen then?” he says and pokes at Tony’s shirt.

“Oh, it is _on_ now, Banner.”

“Careful—you might break a fingernail!” Bruce says. Tony leers.

“Glasses off, Poindexter. We’ll fight this out like men.”

Bruce takes off his glasses then looks at Tony and asks earnestly, “With a game of chess?” Tony stops for a minute, squints as if deciding something. After a moment, he replies.

“Actually, yes. We will play contact-chess. When you take the other person’s pieces, you can chuck them at their eye. But, if you’re being serious, I do love chess, but no one is ever a challenge. Do you have a board?”

“No, but I have Chess Titans on my computer.”

“Technology makes everything better. Let’s get to it. Best five out of nine?”

Bruce gets up to get his computer. “That will take all night.” Not that Bruce is exactly opposed to spending the night with Tony. He grins. “Let’s do it.”

They set up the computer and sit thigh-to-thigh, pushing the laptop between the two of them each move. Bruce wins the first two. Then Tony one, Bruce two, Tony two, a stalemate, then Tony wins the next two, leaving Bruce in the dust. They end up playing eleven games, and by the time they are done, it’s light out, and if it wasn’t for their minds racing, they’d be aware of how tired they are hours ago. Tony basks in victory and exhaustion with a stretch and eats the last of the Doritos they had gotten out last game. Bruce moves the laptop off them.

“I cannot believe we just played chess for nine hours,” he says and picks up his glasses. “I need sleep.”

“Yeah. Hey, since your mom isn’t here, could one of us crash on the couch?” Tony asks, then realizes something. “Wait, is your mom supposed to be gone so long? It’s, like, 5 am already.”

“She works long night shifts. Sometimes she goes right from the bar back to the volunteer stands.”

“Not much time for rest, then.”

“It’s hereditary,” Bruce says. Tony’s face flattens.

“Oh har-har. So—” he yawns “—Jesus I am tired. So, can we sleep now or what? And any vague change there was of me actually going to school today is gone now, so, no worries.”

“Yeah. Come on, I’ll show you to the bedroom.” Bruce gets up and reaches a hand out for Tony to grab. Tony takes it, and Bruce leads him the approximate fifteen steps left to his room’s door.

“Thanks.” Tony lets go of his hand. “I might have gotten lost in one of the three rooms here.”

“They can be quite daunting,” Bruce manages before seeing the allure of his bed. Its covers are made—mom’s doing, with a fresh blanket and newly washed sheets. It takes all his self-restraint not to pounce into them. “So, you want the bed, right?” It’s terrible, but the selfish part of him he needs to beat up his arm to get rid of really hopes Tony will say ‘no.’

“Doc said I need proper bed rest. All-nighter chess games don’t really qualify.”

“Right. So I’ll crash on the floor. You mind letting me have the pillow or does your chest need to be kind of elevated?”

Tony bites his lip. “I feel like a jerk—that’s a first, ha—but I really am supposed to have support on my upper body. I might have some extra pillows or blankets. Dad had just wanted me to pack clothes in case he didn’t approve of here. You could take the blanket while I look for another pillow.”

“Don’t bother looking; all’s good.” Bruce crawls onto the carpet next to the bed and yanks the blanket down over him, then twirls in it so it surrounds his body and face like a sleeping bag.

“Night Tony.

Tony watches Bruce for a minute then walks over to the bed and sits on it. “Hey, wait. Bruce.”

“Hm?” Bruce hums from under the blanket.

“You’re not gay, right? Or, on the flip side, a raging homophobe?” Tony asks. Bruce pops his head out of the sheet.

That’s a weird question, he thinks. Weirdly, he replies, “Last I checked, no, but hey eleven games of chess can really change people.”

Tony cracks his neck to the side and massages it with his hand. “Ha. But alright, so it’s not like it’d be awkward if we just shared a bed or anything. Unless it, like bugs you.”

“Bed’s for two very thin people or one fat guy. It might be a bit tight.”

“Whatever. Just saying, since it’s your house and all and there’s no reason you should have to break your back bunking on the floor.” Then he adds, “Oh god, are you one of those insanely annoying guys who are so macho and insecure about their masculinity that they can’t even –?”

Bruce lugs himself up, still submerged in blanket, and collapses on the bed next to Tony. “Just saying, I don’t do big spoon.”

Tony rolls his eyes and slaps Bruce’s head before they work for five solid minutes unraveling Bruce from the blanket and get into place back-to-back with each other. Bruce reaches over and flickers off the fan. “Night Tony.”

“Night Bruce.”

Halfway through the night, which is actually afternoon, lazy sunlight streaking the room, Tony dazes up, nudges Bruce’s shoulder. “Hey, Bruce…” His voice is slurred a bit. Bruce catches his idea anyhow and turns around so they’re facing each other. “Yeah,” Bruce says and buries his head in Tony’s chest, fuzzy senses registering only warmth. Tony drapes an arm over his shoulder and snakes another up the back of his neck so it rests in his hair. “Mmh, thanks,” Tony murmurs and Bruce replies simply: “welcome.”

They fall back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I have broken my clavicle in soccer, meaning my right arm has to be in a sling. Typing is a bit slower, and with classes starting and soccer, which I now can’t play games or contact practice in, it has been a pretty rough few weeks. Either way, chapter is finally up. It’s a lot of Stanner interaction, since next chapter may have a heavy focus on Loki, Thor, and Steve like last chapter did.
> 
> Enjoy!


	6. Tolstoy Effect

\--- **Chapter 6: Tolstoy Effect** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

It all got worse when they figured out he was adopted.

Not Loki.

Thor.

It all got worse when Loki figured out Thor was adopted.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony wakes up around dinner time. Bruce is still asleep, blankets twined around him, and Tony figures Bruce must toss and turn a lot in his sleep considering the guy was actually in Tony’s chest when Tony woke up. And sure, Tony may not care bedding with his bro, but there is a line where bromance becomes uncomfortable, and for him, cuddling is it. Still, he is glad he woke up first. Bruce probably would have had a panic attack if he woke up in his arms and thought he was making Tony uncomfortable. Tony used to think Bruce was low-maintenance and relaxed, but his stress last night was practically palpable. It’s always the quiet ones, he thinks.

Tony fixes himself a cup of coffee and whatever scraps are leftover in the fridge. Bruce is comes out ten minutes later while he is eating.

“Hey.”

Tony turns around, “Hey—” and stops. Bruce is wearing loose pajama bottoms that sag at the hip and no shirt, his chest sporting the faintest lines of a six-pack. Tony had figured Bruce was just lanky; he hadn’t ever pinned him for athletic. Does Bruce play sports? His arms have definition, too. “Muscle-man.”

Bruce is confused a second, then laughs. “Right. It’s just because I do karate and jog everywhere since neither my mom nor me have a car.”

“Karate? But you seem so… pacifistic. Don’t the classes cost a lot at the dojo?” Howard had tried to sign Tony up when he was ten, but it ran the same time as robotics club after school, and Tony hated the idea of fighting other people. Everyone should just get along, little Tony had said, and Howard had replied that the classes were for when they didn’t. He still never ended up taking them.

“My mom’s friends with the owner, and I am friends with the owner’s daughter. Romanoff,” Bruce says.

“Natasha, right? I think she’s in my Progressive Lit. class.”

“Yeah. I get free classes there as long as I tutor her in Biology.”

“Not a bad deal.”

“No it is not,” Bruce agrees. “But Natasha can be a little—” He looks at the plate of food Tony had laid out. “Oh, jesus. Sorry all our food sucks. My mom wanted to rush to the store and buy things, but our standard of a stocked fridge is pretty terrible.”

Tony shrugs. “I’m on you two’s hospitality, so I won’t be complaining.” He yawns. Bruce catches the motion and yawns himself, stretching his arms and cracking his back.

“My sleep schedule’s all messed up now.”

“Dude,” Tony starts, “you’re whole _sleep_ is messed up. When I woke up, you were clinging to me, nuzzled in my chest like a girl.”

“Objection,” Bruce replies immediately. “I was nuzzled into your chest like a _man._ Also, was I really? That is insanely embarrassing.” Tony looks at Bruce and can tell he feels more worried than humiliated. What’s Bruce afraid of? That Tony isn’t gonna like him anymore?

“No, it was pretty effeminate, I’m sure.” Then after a second, “But don’t worry about it. I mean I was facing you too, so we’re both at fault here.”

“Yes. The terrible fault of a bromance going too far.”

“It’s like a bad movie plot: Bromance – the friendship that kept going.”

“And by going, of course, you mean right up the ass. Total anal annihilation. Analhilation.”

Tony chokes a laugh. “Oh my god Bruce, you can’t just say that!”

“What? Gay anal penetration? Does that… bother you?” Bruce asks with fake mischievousness. They are playing a game, now.

Tony matches the glint in Bruce’s eyes. “No, but I am sure all forms of penetration are foreign too you.”

“Well, I’d hope the penetration would be foreign. If not, you’re just playing with yourself, and that’s no fun.”

Are bros even allowed to make masturbation jokes? And how innocent really is Bruce with all this? “Hey, Bruce. You mind me asking you some questions, friend-to-friend, heart-to-significantly-stronger-heart?”

“That last joke was _awful_ , but ask away,” Bruce pulls up a seat and sits across from him.

“Are you still a virgin?” Tony asks unabashedly.

“I am sixteen, so yes.”

“Have you dated anyone?”

“Like four people, yeah.”

“Kissed?”

“Yes.”

“Made out?”

There’s a tiny smile on Bruce’s face. “Once.”

“With anyone now?”

“No.”

“Want to be?”

“Sure.”

“With who, then?”

“Don’t care. Someone I wouldn’t ruin too badly. Someone I deserve, so probably not anyone too amazing.”

Tony wants to say something, but doesn’t want to chance saying the wrong thing.

“First kiss?” he asks instead.

Bruce starts to answer then stops, looks up at the ceiling and counts something on his fingers. “Ah, yes. Eric Kripke.”

Tony stops. “Your first kiss. Was _Erica Kripke_? She wouldn’t even _look_ at me last year, and believe me, I tried. She is hot, nice going, dude.” Tony pats Bruce’s back. Bruce smiles, but shrugs out of the touch.

“Erica is insanely good looking, but not my first. She was way out of my league. Still is, probably. Her not-so-identical twin brother, Eric was mine.” Bruce really doesn’t like the memory. It is stupid and Eric was a terrible kisser. Tony’s mouth opens an inch and his eyebrows pop up.

“A guy?”

“Hm?”

“Your first kiss was a guy.”

“Yeah.”

Tony tries to think of something to say.

“Oh.”

Tony is a freaking genius. Word-wizard, Mr. A-to-Z right here. Shakespeare is rolling over in his grave.

“So you’re gay?” Tony attempts.

“What? No, Jesus, no. Well, probably not, at least. Eric was my best friend back then, and he got his first girlfriend, and didn’t know how to kiss. I didn’t either, and I was bi-curious back then after getting worked up over seeing this very inappropriate men’s wrestling match—seriously, those things are ridiculous, so we just kind of tested it out, and, well, you know how in the movies they kiss and fireworks go off? For us, it was like someone rubbing two sticks together. In the same direction. No. Fun.”

“Oh, well that’s good,” Tony says. “I mean, I wouldn’t have cared if you were… that, but it would have made bed-sharing uncomfortable, and I’d be worried you would start liking me.”

“Tony, being gay doesn’t mean you _have_ to—”

“No, but being attracted to men means there’s a chance. I would feel the same way I do around a girl that is straight or bi or whatever. There’s always a _chance_ if the sexualities line up, slim as it may be, and the chance always makes it hard for me to really open up to them, because then if I do and they start liking me, and I don’t like them back—which I wont; I don’t date—then I will have to tell them, and then probably lose them as a friend too. “

“You sound like you’ve done that before.”

“Her name was Pepper. Best friend in the world last year, a year older than me, showed me around New York and the high school since I moved from Cali. We were friends with benefits, she wanted more benefits, I couldn’t do it. I loved her, but I couldn’t love _just_ her and just—now it’s insanely awkward and we don’t talk anymore and I lost someone very important to me just like,” he snaps his finger, “that.”

“Pepper? She was in my science class. Wasn’t she—” Bruce catches himself and stops. “Right. But, well, if I was gay, I would so not be gay for you,” Bruce says. He grabs a piece of bread off Tony’s plate. “I am more of a muscle-head jock kind of guy. You’re far too nerdy; dating you would ruin my rep.”

Tony snorts. “Yeah, right. Well if I was queer, you, Bruce Banner, you would be _exactly_ my type. I like brunettes.”

“Was your mom a brunette?” Bruce asks. The playful smirk on Tony’s mouth drops.

“I don’t remember,” he replies.

“Oh. Well I was just asking because people tend to go after people like their parents, or parent in your case, because I don’t think you are masochistic enough to want to date a mini-Howard,” Bruce jokes, but Tony is spaced out and replies late. “And I just totally ruined everything, oh god.”

“No. You didn’t. You are like her, actually. You have eyes like her, I mean. Brown, pretty. Caring about others’ pain. Though you probably don’t drink as much as she did.” Bruce puts down the toast he was nipping, and looks at him. Eye-contact. Tony recoils. “Sorry if that was a little… ”

“No, it’s—” Bruce pushes his glasses into place and swallows. “Fine. Absolutely fine. Thank you.”

“… You’re blushing.”

“What? I am not.”

“Bruce Banner, you are _so_ blushing.”

“Silence, peasant.” Did Bruce just call him a peasant? “You are in my castle, you follow my rules. Rule one: the king of the castle does not blush.”

“Is it because I said you have pwetty eyes?”

Bruce’s [pwetty] eyes turn menacing and he charges. He and Tony play chase through the interconnected rooms until they are tired and dive on the bed. Once on it, they wrestle a bit. Bruce takes the blanket and shoves Tony under it. Tony pulls him beneath the tarp, too. They tangle and twist each other in bedding, and it’s idiotic and absolutely childish and Tony hasn’t had this much fun in years.

Tony ends up on top, but only because Bruce lets him. Bruce, karate—the guy is a lot more muscular than any Stark is. Still, he’s pinning Bruce down with a blanket and his elbows. “Concede, Bruce Tapestry!”

“It’s Banner.”

“I’ll have your name changed.”

“You wish!”

Bruce lunges forward and now Tony’s trapped against the bed, head angling off the side. “My, your room looks splendid upside-down.”

“Shut-up, Stark.”

“Make me.”

“That a flirtation or a threat?”

Tony just laughs. It’s fun. It’s simple. Non-stressing, and he bets this is the first time Bruce has felt this relaxed in a while, too.

(Tony is right with that conjecture.)

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Years earlier, Thor and Loki are only eleven.

Anna Karenina opens, _“_ _Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”_ Loki wasn’t a genius, but he could understand the quote, even at age eleven when Thor decided they needed to go on a classical literature binge and picked up every translation on Don Quixote and Anna Karenina he could find. Thor, of course, became way too invested in the former, and the latter struck an emotional chord with Loki. How glad he was that his family was one of the happy ones.

So, naturally, Loki’s world collapses when Odinson casually, very casually, reveals Thor isn’t blood.

It’s at a doctor’s office; Thor broke an arm at highly-intensive eleven-year-old football practice, and as Mr. Odinson is filling out the papers, the nurse asks about his relation to the patient. Loki hears the answer.

“Well, me nor my wife are Thor’s,” the next word is whispered, “birth parents, but we have complete custody, and have since he was one.”

The nurse just nods then helped Thor to the X-ray room with a big smile as though she hasn’t just devastated Loki’s everything.

See, because Thor isn’t the only one who takes books too seriously. Loki didn’t want an Anna Karenina family. He wants to be happy; he wants his family to be happy. Happy families are perfect, and even though Loki is only eleven he knows that his family no longer fits that mold, and never, ever will.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Tony’s back in school two days later. He takes the school bus for the first time with Bruce. You have to wake up at five in the _morning_ , he learns, but Bruce’s house is one of the first stops, so they get to sit on the bus for an hour talking and sharing earbuds and songs between Tony’s iPod and Bruce’s mp3 player. Bruce has a playlist called ‘Terrible Music,’ which consists of the most atrocious punk, pop, and hipster attempts at progressive rock Tony has ever heard. He looks at Bruce intensely and whispers deadpan that they needed to dissemble these artists before they mate. Bruce’s laugh is like bells exploding.

The day drips by laxly. Tony had finished most his make-up work in recovery and at Bruce’s, and now is only left with a few quizzes and tests to take. In gym last period, Thor, Loki and Mr. Odinson are all missing. Tony asks if Bruce knows where they are, and Bruce tells him to ask Steve. Steve, however, ducks away from his glance with something when Tony accosts him. It takes him a second to identify it.

Pity. Steve is avoiding him because pity. Steve Captain-A-fucking-merica is _not_ allowed to _pity_ him. He is _Tony Stark_ , a fucking genius who makes Steve Rogers look like an ant, not some weak, helpless nobody who can’t even handle himself. Bruce picks up on Tony’s anger, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, Steve,” Bruce asks, keeping his hand in place. “You see any of the Odinsons anywhere today?”

Steve seems to have an easier time talking to Bruce. “Family outing. That’s what Thor said at least. Loki wasn’t answering my texts.”

“Oh,” Bruce says. Tony scoffs.

“Doesn’t Loki always say he isn’t Thor’s family?”

“It’s kinda complicated from what I get. I’d ask them, but whenever I do Loki looks like he’s going to knife me and Thor just gets really—” Steve meets Tony’s eye, which is apparently a mistake because he immediately shies away “—upset and weird. Speaking of… weird, how’s your… thing. That happened,” he says to Tony. It’s unfair and annoying and Tony just wants Steve to treat him normally.

“Thing. That happened. Right.” Then again, if Tony can’t punch Loki out today, Steve may do. “None of your business.”

“I just want to help,” Steve says, wiping a bit of dribble off his cheek. “No need to spit at me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t want my saliva getting contaminated,” Tony says. He turns away and starts to ask Bruce something, when Steve grabs his shoulder and whirls him back around. The touch is notably harsh.

“Okay, you know what, Tony? I really don’t see your problem with me,” Steve forces through his teeth. His voice is quiet, but it feels like he is screaming. “Because I have done nothing but try to be nice to you from day one, and even now, after you’ve gone through hell and back, and I just want to say sorry and know how you’re okay, and you won’t even give me that!”

Bruce sends Tony a signal that says ‘Leave it alone.’ Tony appreciates the gesture, but ignores it. He steps away from Bruce, towards Steve.

“Well, for one, you dress like you’re from the 18th century and your biceps—biceps are the fancy-people names for the muscles in your arms, if you didn’t know—weigh more than your brain. Really, a pretty face and some fake ‘niceness’; Take that away and what are you?”

Steve gapes. “I am not taking this. Not from you. Not when everything special about you, Tony Stark, comes from your father!”

That’s it. Tony smiles, arches his arm back and—

The speed at which Bruce grabs his arm is lightening. His grip is more like iron. Fucking karate. Tony is fuming; he’s surprised Bruce’s hand isn’t smoking where it’s holding his arm. “Let’s all relax here, alright?” Bruce says.

“Yeah. _Relax,_ Tony,” Steve says. It’s mean. Steve is being mean but he thinks he has earned the right to not care for a class. “Do what your boyfriend tells you.”

“One, despite popular belief, my boyfriend is Matt Smith, not Bruce, and, two, I think you need to relax before your panties ride any further up your ass.” Tony tugs on Bruce’s grip. Bruce doesn’t falter. “Princess,” Tony adds with a sneer.

Steve bites his lip. “Okay. Okay fine. I—me? I am _done_ with this!” And he throws his arms up stomps out. “You win you _ass_!” And he just walks out of the gym just right as the substitute comes fumbling in with a clipboard overflowing with papers. She peaks over it, messy hair and big glasses skewed, and asks, “Are you guys allowed to do that?”

“He… had a pass for the nurse’s office?” Bruce says slowly, and Tony cools himself off to attest.

“Alrighty then,” teacher says, not believing a word. “This week we’re doing Yoga.”

The teacher stays for the five days; the Odinsons are gone for a week. Bruce manages to waylay any Steve-Tony scuffles, mostly because he is stronger than Tony and able to make Steve feel guilty enough to not want to fight anymore. Bruce tries to word Tony out of it too, explaining that Tony can’t exert himself like that during recovery, that Steve isn’t worth it (though, Bruce never thinks physical violence is ‘worth it’), that Tony shouldn’t let small things bug him, and Bruce’s attempts fails miserably every time. It’s on Friday when they’re on the bus home that Bruce actually manages to get something akin to reason out of Tony.

“Bruce. Listen, I know all your pep-talking is for my greater good, and I am surprised you haven’t flipped out on me yet for how stubborn I am being—” Bruce is surprised on that, too, “—but if you make the ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’ argument one more time, I am going to rip my hair out.”

“That would be a good thing. You’d finally get rid of this nasty thing.” Bruce glides the back of his nubby fingernails along Tony’s stubble. They lingers a second too long before returning back to Bruce’s knee. “But seriously, you _shouldn’t_ worry about things, words especially, that aren’t true and won’t matter in a week. It’s… I have a lot of problems myself, and that is a huge one of them.”

“No, Bruce, your problem is that you have a high-level anxiety disorder and don’t want to burden your mom by telling her about it, so it goes untreated, which only makes it worse and worse. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from this week with you. I mean, only you could have a borderline panic attack because you thought I was ticked you had the last of the Cheerios. _My_ problem is that I have America’s Sunshine telling me I’m only special because my piss-poor father.”

Tony says the first sentences like throw-aways, but Bruce hears them all the same. How does Tony know? Bruce wants to ask him, but right now it’s Tony’s turn for angst. “Which wouldn’t bug you if you thought it was a total lie.” Tony purses his lips and looks out the window. Bruce sighs. “And it is a total lie.” A beat. “But you don’t think so?”

“I think that because of who I am, I have more opportunities to be special than anyone else. Let’s be fair, you’re just as smart as me. Smarter at some things, but you probably would have gone through hell and three ways back to get through college to get a good job, or wouldn’t have gotten one at all despite your brilliance because society sucks like that. No matter who I was, stupid, smart, I would still have a high-paying job, an important job, and the best education money can buy just because my family can afford it. It’s just a bit depressing, I’ll never know if I have what it takes to make it from the ground up. If I’m already on a pedestal. But, I can’t feel bad about it, obviously, because people who are on the ground have it a million times worse. So when Steve says I’m only unique because my dad, I can’t exactly counter the fucking argument.”

“Tony. Listen to me. You are absolutely _brilliant,_ and just because people have it worse, it doesn’t mean your problems aren’t as important.” When Bruce’s mom had been suffering from depression after having him premarital, she had never told him about it because she worked on people every day with heart conditions or who were starving and really needed help. She thought she could just stop being sad, but she couldn’t. It’s why Dad left. “Really, Tony. I’m not lying.”

“But still, it’s obnoxious for a rich person to complain.”

“Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

“Clearly, you’ve never seen what type of lab equipment a forty million dollar grant can get you.”

Bruce laughs.

He laughs a lot and maybe it’s so Tony will laugh to. He does join in after a second, and once Bruce calms himself to giggling, he looks at Tony smiling wide and is suddenly aware of how the way they’re sitting mashes their thighs together and that he can feel Tony’s body heat through the fabrics. He’s aware his heart is beating a step too fast and that he laughs a little bit too long and Tony’s grin makes him forget the hiss of bus and car that usually drives him mad. “Clearly, you need to take me to Stark Mansion,” Bruce says.

“Yes, right after my stay at Banner Manor is done.”

The bus pulls to a stop and they get off. Bruce is carrying Tony’s books because their geometry teacher smashed them today, and Tony isn’t allowed any heavy lifting. “Please, _please_ , never call it ‘Banner Manor’ again. My mom calls it that.”

Tony laughs. “Seriously? Oh my god, she totally would.” It makes Bruce want to laugh too, but he keeps himself to a smile that doesn’t falter even a quark until they’re back in the apartment. Around Tony, he honestly can’t stop smiling.

Then they step in the apartment.

Bruce stops smiling.

Bruce’s mom is on the floor in a pile of vomit. He drops his books and runs to her.

“Mom?!”

No answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This took far too long to post! I've been preoccupied with school, soccer, and broken bones as per usual and this fic had kind of just taken the back seat! However, I am back with 1/2 of chapter 7 done and the next three or so plotted out so hopefully my next updates won't be so sparing!


	7. Pillboxes Are Magic

\--- **Chapter 7: Pillboxes and Magic** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Bruce feels like puking. Tony sprints outside to the bathroom and does. The look on Bruce’s face was too familiar. It was the same as Tony's glanced at a mirror in the hospital bathroom an hour after his mom died. Tony takes a deep breath and swallows down the taste of throw-up—Bruce needs him right now, and he doesn’t spend more than a minute in the stall before dashing back. He flings Bruce’s door open. Ms. Banner is standing wobbly, an arm over her Bruce’s shoulders. Her other hand is on her forehead. “Hey Tony…” she starts.

She’s okay. Bruce’s mom is _okay_.

“Hi, Miss Banner. Good to see you up and about."

“Mom, save your voice,” Bruce says. “We don’t know if there’s something acidic in your throat that talking could make worse.”

“Didn’t swallow nothing acidic,” she murmurs as Bruce lays her on the couch. Tony, meanwhile, goes to the kitchen to get something to wash out his mouth and calls the cleaners to clear Bruce's mom's mess off the carpet. Once he's off the phone, he pops back into the living room.

“Carpet cleaners will be here in twenty. We should get her to a doctor.”

“I am a doctor,” Ms. Banner asserts from the couch, her thumb hanging in the hair and pointing at hereslf. “I could do open heart surgery on myself.” Her voice is weak and crackling. Tony hates that type of voice.

“I can get a doctor to make a house call since none of us can drive,” Tony says. “And the cabs would be stuck in traffic at 4pm.”

“Wouldn’t the doctor, too?” Bruce asks nervously. He’s holding his mother’s hand between both his. Whatever his mom has, Bruce isn’t afraid of catching it. Tony understands him completely. When Tony was little: “ _Well, if Mommy has to get surgery, I want it too!”_ No kid wants their parent to suffer.

Later, the carpet is cleaned and the doctor asks Bruce and Tony to leave her alone while she examines Ms. Banner. Michelle is one of the few doctors Tony can trusts (Michelle and Bruce’s mom currently comprise the list.) She was his mom’s doctor when she had first gotten ill, but was later dropped in favor of a more ‘qualified’ doctor. Tony always wondered what could have happened if they’d kept her.

Sitting on the bed with his eyes shut and hands tugging into his hair, Bruce only realizes when Tony sits next to him by the feel of the mattress shifting. “You alright?” comes Tony's voice, soft and blanket-like.

Their thighs touch. Tony puts a hand on Bruce's back. “I will be. I need to relax,” Bruce says.

“Can I help?”

“Probably not.”

“If you had meds for anxiety, they could help.”

“I don’t need pills, Tony.” Bruce shrugs away his arm.

“Your mom takes ones for depression,” Tony says, folding his hands together. Bruce looks at him quizzically. “They’re in the drawer on top of the microwave, behind the paper plates. Remember when I made pizza bagels a few nights ago and was looking everywhere for something recyclable to serve them on?”

“My mom’s different.” Tony turns to him, and Bruce looks away and stops like he’s trying to find the right words. “This is all different. Kind of weird. Not my mom, I mean. You. Like, you’re—you’re finding out everything about me, I guess.”

“And you’re not with me?” Tony asks?

They look at each other.

“Am I?”

“More than most people have. Even Howard’s noticed it.” He shrugs. He and Bruce haven’t broken eye-contact.

“You shouldn’t call your dad Howard,” Bruce says.

“You should take something for anxiety.”

“I’m not anxious.”

“I can feel it vicariously, Bruce. It’s starting to affect me. Really, my left hand has just started twitching and making phone calls to long distance relatives it hasn’t seen in six years to makes sure they are okay.”

Bruce looks away and laughs. Tony smiles. “Oh god, Tony, I’ve actually _done_ that before.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Hell, this is a serious issue and all, but Bruce. Seriously?”

“I kid you not.”

“Well that settles it. When you start sharing symptoms with Tony Stark’s body parts, you know you have an issue.”

Bruce looks at him and guffaws. “ _What?_ ”

“I am attempting to cheer you up. Give me some credit.”

“Well, there was certainly an attempt,” Bruce says, smiling and adjusting his glasses.

Tony makes a skunk-face and leans into Bruce’s shoulder. “Shut up, Banner.”

“Never.”

“How rude.”

They just giggle for a bit, lie back in the bed and count the dots on the ceiling together and give up after twenty-seven.

“You’re mom’s gonna be fine though. It’s stomach-bug season, she probably just got a really nasty one.”

“Yeah, probably,” Bruce replies, and Tony can tell he really believes that. Then Tony can’t stop grinning because making Bruce feel that relaxed is just amazing, and the huge surge of confidence and warmth that may or may not be also from where their hips and arms are brushing together on the bed only adds to it all. Bruce points to the ceiling. “Twenty-eight.”

“Please stop.”

It is just a stomach bug. The doctor says she had a minor allergic reaction to a nausea pill she’d taken, hence the throw-up. The feeble voice and body is just a result of the bug she had caught. “It is absolutely nothing to worry about, but if you are worried, call me any time,” Michelle says, smiles at them, then is on her way. Nothing to worry about. When she says it, Tony looks over at Bruce to see his reaction.

The relief on Banner’s face is toxic. “Thank you!” Bruce says and waves as the doctor leaves. Tony can’t stop smiling. Bruce closes the door after the doctor and turns around. He fist-bumps the air and runs up to Tony and they hug each other until they can stop smiling.

Bruce’s mom can’t work. That’s a given. She is to stay in bed for the next two weeks or until two days after her fever breaks and the nausea stops. Being sick, she wouldn’t have been able to volunteer at the hospital stands or waitress with food anyway. “Still, I want to work,” she says.

“Well, you can’t,” Bruce replies. He and Tony are in the kitchen. Tony’s melting cheese and tomato sauce on bagels, and Bruce is making soup for his mom. “So enjoy the time off.”

“People are dying without me.”

“Someone else will fill your spot. Everyone gets sick.”

“Some worse than others,” she adds. Tony spreads the paste on a bagel a bit too harshly. Bruce grabs his hand until he calms down. “I need to get better,” she finishes.

“I agree,” Bruce says. “So lie down and get working on it.” Reluctantly, Ms. Banner does. With the couch taken by his mom, Bruce’s bedroom becomes the new living space. Tony brings the food to it while Bruce feeds his mom soup. Later, they sit on the bed and eat while and watch Saturday Night Live clips on Bruce’s laptop. “Want to go for a walk?” Bruce asks in-between skits.

“To where?”

“Not _to_ anywhere.”

“Just walking?”

“It’s a nice night and being all sedentary is probably bumming you out a bit.” Bruce can see it. The air of fatigue Tony gets at seeing his mom sick. Tony’s probably imagining his own mom. Bruce figures a walk outside would give them both some much-needed stress release. “Tony?”

He blinks. “Yeah, um. Sure.”

“Are you okay? You just spaced out for a sec.”

“I am fine, I just—never mind. Are you sure we should leave your mom here? Alone? What if something happens?”

Oh. Bruce hadn’t thought about that. Jesus, what if something does happen? She could die. She is probably going to die, and Bruce is going to have no one again just like when his dad left. Bruce realizes he is thinking psychotically and scrunches his eyes together, shutting them and trying to will away the thoughts. Tony is looking elsewhere, probably engaged some internal warfare of his own. Bruce tries deep breathing. Tony’s question hours or seconds earlier still redolent in the air. It’s too late to respond; responding would be weird at this point. Bruce is so fucking weird.

Tony doesn’t usually think he’s weird, though.The job of a scientist is to analyze data and draw conclusions. Based on most all their interactions, Tony really doesn’t see anything strange about him. Not in a negative sense, at least. Bruce finds his voice. “Nothing is going to happen. She is asleep and on her side so if she did puke she wouldn’t risk drowning in it, which she wouldn’t anyway because the doctor gave her something to calm her stomach that’s worked perfectly for the past few hours. It’s just a cold, Tony.”

Bruce wonders if by comforting Tony he is also comforting himself. Maybe seeing that someone else can get worried and inexplicably paranoid (though Tony is paranoid due to a traumatic event, whereas Bruce is nervous just because he is a _freak_ ) makes Bruce feel more normal. It definitely offers solace.

“I just gave you a panic attack, didn’t I?” Tony asks.

“What?”

“Did mean to. Sorry.” Tony sounds genuinely distressed. He combs through his hair with his hand. “Really, I didn’t mean to. Guess worry is contagious?”

“The panic attacks are worse by a mile. That was more of just making me worry over something for a minute.”

“So there are panic attacks.”

“You knew that.”

“Yes, but now you have admitted it, Bruce Banner, and that is step numero uno a la path-o de recover-ero.”

“One,” Bruce starts. The two of them creep past Ms. Banner to the coat hangers and dress. “That was the worst Spanish ever.” Once dressed, Bruce opens the door and, Tony then he walks through it. The night air is crisp and chilly. They should have worn more layers. “Two, I know I have problems.”

“But you don’t want to fix them?”

“I’m a republican.”

Tony deadpans. “No you’re not.”

“Okay I’m not. Political parties are inane.” They make their way down the stairs. “Still, fixing my problems would be more problematic than the problems themselves.”

There is police tape over the old door with bullet gapes in it. Tony takes a sniff and says, “Meth lab. Someone must have been using the abandoned room as a base of operations.”

“Not a very spacious place for a drug factory.”

“Probably why they got caught.”

“Yeah.”

Bruce is happy for the subject change. They walk another ten minutes in quiet, the sounds and lights of the city loading their senses. Bruce sighs. This walk has always been his favorite when he’s calm. When he’s not, it’s all screaming cars and blinding buzzes and adverts. With Tony it’s even nicer than when he’s totally relaxed.

“Do you want to talk?” Tony asks after a while.

“Do you?”

“A little. Not with you though, not right now at least.”

“Why not with me?”

“Too personal. Besides, your issues are cooler.”

Bruce scoffs and continues, “I don’t have _issues_. Not real ones.”

Tony looks at the skylights. “Didn’t you tell me just a while ago that all problems matter?”

“Different set of rules for people other than me.”

“You’re like a girl.” Bruce looks at him. Tony explains, “Girls always think every other girl in the world is pretty other than themselves—the nicer ones do, at least. You, meanwhile, seem to think everyone else is more important than yourself.”

“I don’t weight people on importance. I’m sixteen.”

“Too smart for a sixteen year old.”

“You, too, though.”

“Right.”

The way the buildings illuminate the sky makes it look like there are stars out.

“If it was physical, you wouldn’t be doing this. If instead of grade-A anxiety, you had, let’s say, cancer or broken bone, you wouldn’t blink twice about heading to the doctor’s.”

“But it’s not. It’s a mental thing.”

“Mental ‘things’ are still things, Bruce.”

Tony can hear Bruce sigh.

“You can’t die from a mental disorder.”

“Externally, probably not.” They walk a few more steps. “Though I hear suicides becoming a bit of a trend as of.”

Bruce stops. He puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the side of a building. The doppler of car engines pass in waves. His head tightens up. “You don’t get it.”

“How?” Tony challenges, aggravated.

“Because you’re not me, so you probably never will understand me.” Not really, at least. Bruce notices his voice rising with Tony’s and calms himself down. “That sounded like a depressed teenage girl, sorry.”

Tony stands to the side of him, looking at the lock of hair in Bruce’s eyelash. He licks his thumb and takes a step towards him. “Look at me.”

Bruce does, and Tony grabs the strand with his thumb and pointer finger and yanks, ripping it out in an instant. Bruce cringes. “What the hell? Ow!”

“You have this one bit of hair that is flowing in the opposite way of all your others and getting in your eye, and it drives me nuts.”

Tony tosses the hair to the ground, and the wind blows it away. Bruce feels his forehead and eyelash. It’s bare, just skin and a bit of bangs—the way Bruce likes it. He won’t have to keep shaking his head to get that strand out of his eye anymore.

“Thanks, Tony.”

“Don’t see why you didn’t yank it years ago.”

“It never occurred to me,” Bruce says honestly. Tony looks at him sideways.

“You’re weird.” Then smiles. “And I mean that as the highest compliment.”

Bruce smiles, but he still feels bitter. It comes across in his voice. “I’m honored.”

There’s a sigh and a gust of wind, and Tony sinks down until he’s sitting on the pavement. He motions for Bruce to join him, and Bruce does. The night tints everything blue. Tony shuts his eyes. “Close your eyes, Bruce.”

“What for?”

“Trust me.”

Bruce trusts him. He shuts his eyes tightly. Tony opens an eye and peers at him.

“Close, not scrunch,” Tony says. Bruce returns his gaze with a look reading ‘Seriously?’ and Tony responds, “My mom would have Howard do this when he got worked up. Deep breaths and really close your eyes.”

“Okay.” Bruce takes a deep breath and droops his eyelids together. The world goes black. “Now what?”

“Listen to everything you hear, run your hands along the pavement and see how it feels. I know, this sounds so yoga, but seriously. Try it.”

Bruce opens his ears. He hears the cars and people in the distance yelling, the sounds of New York. But after a minute, it starts to change. He hears a dad calling his wife asking how the baby is. There is a woman who’s car broke down and a cab driver stopped his service to help her. Clank of someone dropping change in a bucket. Wind. Eventually, the sounds mesh together and Bruce is just on autopilot just listening.

“Don’t forget to touch,” Tony says.

It’s ridiculous, but Bruce feels his fingertips along the sidewalk, rough edges and shapes like sandpaper, but the texture is soothing. Bruce never noticed how much you miss of your other senses when you spend too much time just looking. He moves his hand a bit until it hits something soft and cold. He palms the object, rubbing circles in its surface with his thumb and warming it. The object starts to shift. It flips over and laces with his hand, and it’s entirely surreal. Bruce loses sense of time. Eventually, a weight on his shoulder snaps him back to consciousness, and Tony Stark fell asleep waiting for Bruce to calm down, holding his hand and helping him along the way. Bruce doesn’t want to wake him, but he has to. He nudges Tony up. Tony’s first reaction is a grin.

“Other worldly, right?” he asks. Their fingers unlace.

“Thank you,” Bruce says.

“Don’t mention it.”

They walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Are you saying I am actually capable of updating more than once a month? Blasphemy! Though, seriously. Shorter chapter than the others. Heavy focus on the Tony/Bruce interaction. Enjoy!


	8. At Last

\--- **Chapter 8: At Last** \- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

Bruce knows he’s doomed when Tony looks nice hogging the blankets in their bed. They had walked home peacefully, checked on Bruce’s mom, gave her some water, then messed around on the laptop for a while before settling down to sleep. Tony went out before Bruce, and Bruce made the mistake of trying to steal some of the blankets back after he did. When Bruce grabbed the corner of the blanket, its silk slipped and he slid forward, his face just above Tony’s closed eyes and lips. That’s when he notices it.

Tony is attractive.

Rather, Tony is attractive to _Bruce._ Obviously Bruce noticed in the past that Tony has something that pulls in girls if all Tony‘s bragging is anything to go by, but Bruce never felt the spark himself. Plus, he’s never been one to like for looks. Not being a looker himself, he doesn’t think he has any right to. Personality is far more appealing. And Tony has a _hot_ personality.

The line of stubble on his chin and soft curve of his eyelashes aren’t bad either. Bruce pulls away to his side, trying to tug some blanket with him and failing. He briefly entertains the idea of having a sexuality crisis, but realizes he maybe shouldn’t have based his entire analysis of dick on _Eric Kripke_. Eric Kripke and Tony aren’t even in the same league. Neither is Bruce, though. Being sixteen and in high school, Bruce figures the crush will go away in a few weeks. Tony’s a great friend. That’s what makes him attractive and is, controversially, why Bruce can’t touch him. Not that he would stand a chance anyway. Tony yawns and rolls over, twisting the blanket with him and putting and arm around Bruce from behind and pulling him into his chest. Bruce might think something of it if he hadn’t seen Tony do the same thing to a pillow a few minutes earlier.

Still, Tony’s warm behind him, and maybe Bruce can give himself a treat for just one night. It’s nothing that won’t be gone in the morning, anyway.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - ------- - - - - - -

Tony wakes up on the floor. Not while falling to the floor, but, literally, wakes up and is simply on the hardwood floor.

“Morning wood?” Bruce asks, peeking down from the bed. Tony throws a pillow at him.

“How the hell did I fall?” he asks from the floor.

“Well, you were spooning me again in my sleep, so I decided to take the noble course of action of shoving the kid with a heart condition onto the cruel, unforgiving floor. You know, before anything out of hand could happen. Protect my virtue” Is Bruce allowed to say that now that he likes Tony? Bruce doesn’t want to censor himself. He would have said that, boner for Tony or not. Definitely.

“Define ‘virtue.’ …And ‘anything.’” Tony stands up from the floor, his back making a vicious crack. “Afraid I’d take advantage of you in your sleep?”

“I was more afraid you would asphyxiate me.” Bruce rubs his eyes and grabs his glasses from the nightstand, smiling as he puts them on.

“Ooh, kinky,” Tony remarks and hops on the bed, leaning against Bruce’s shoulder and saying into his ear, “Speaking of kinky,” Bruce ignores the brush of breath on his earlobe, “there much of a shower scene around here? The only cleaning I’ve had all week were after gym class.”

“Me too, though.” Bruce gets out of bed to put some distance between them and get dressed. “And, um, not really. They’re still under renovation for the pot addict trying to grow hash in the stalls a few months ago. We’ve called the landlord, but he kind of just hissed at us.”

“Like a snake?”

“He actually has a pet snake,” Bruce says, pointing in the air and remembering meeting at the landlord’s house when he and his mom were first looking for apartments. “Really long, light-yellow thing.”

Tony presses his lips together and shakes his head. “Wouldn’t want to miss rent here,” he says. Tony looks along the stale walls with paint chipping in the corners. “Or maybe I would. This place is beat-up, Bruce. Dangerous. You shouldn’t be living here; It’s probably how your mom got sick. Bad drinking water or something.”

Bruce picks up his clothes from the floor and folds them into a pile on his dresser. “Our tap is fine, and if it bugs you so much, buy us a house.”

Tony’s face lights up, and he wriggles his finger, making non-literal connections. “Yes, I think I could do that.”

“Tony.”

“No, really. We have enough money—”

“You’re not buying me a house,” Bruce says dismissively form his dresser.

“When’s your birthday?” Tony continues, ignoring him.

“July twenty-go-screw-yourself.”

“Size preference?”

“Six and a half inches, and if you buy us a house, I am burning it down,” he says. “And _not_ taking the insurance.” He combs his hair and waits for a strand to fall in his eye before remembering Tony got rid of it. He turns around and begs, “Tony, please do not buy us a house. I can‘t believe this is even a serious conversation.”

“Bruce, please do not take anything I say seriously, ever. My dad would kill me if a hundred thousand just dropped from his account. I’m not _that_ spoiled.”

Bruce sighs and then looks at Tony sideways. “Who said you’re spoiled?”

Tony counts on his fingers. “One, two, three, everyone?”

“Rich doesn’t mean spoiled.”

“Oh come on, I have my own _labs_. Plural. And I am only, what? Sixteen?”

Bruce shakes his head. “But your labs are being used to invent things and help people. It’s not like you’re asking for five new cars or a diamond necklace every day.”

Tony looks away with something devious and droll hinting on his face. “Well, I did want this _hot_ red convertible for my succulent sixteen—”

“Succulent?” Bruce questions with a smile. Tony walks to the mirror above his dresser next to him and begins to get ready himself.

“Girls are sweet; boys are succulent, clearly.” Tony waits a minute before continuing. “Listen, Bruce. I appreciate you acting like I’m a good person, and I suppose I’m not half bad, but I _am_ selfish, and I _am_ spoiled. It’s part of what makes me me. Everyone has bad habits they have absolutely no desire to change whatsoever,” he adds with a shrug.

“They do not—,” Bruce starts, but Tony is already hopping out the bedroom, throwing on a new shirt and yelling to Bruce that he’s making eggs.

Tony’s an awful cook, and always has been. Howard did the cooking for the family. Then mom died and Howard doesn’t cook anymore. He hires people for that. So Tony never learned to cook, and he really can’t cook. He knows this, but Bruce’s mom is moaning on the couch, and he wants to immediately distract him from it, and maybe veer off sensitive subjects in the process. Looking at the pan, he realizes he kept the stove on ‘ignite’ and rushes over to turn it down, figuring burning the house down might not be the best way to relieve Bruce‘s stress. The eggs, however, don’t burn, and when Bruce does come out and Tony peeks through the door-less doorway to him, the first thing he does is check on his mom. How are you doing? Feeling better today? Can I do anything to help? Tony sighs. He remembers hospital visits every day after school. Sometimes skipping to spend more time with her. He also remembers that the past is the past and he needs to grow up.

He plops a plate of eggs and toast on the table just as Bruce walks into the kitchen, and beckons Bruce over. Bruce stares from Tony to the stove, bemused, flips his arms up no-questions-asked and sits down in front of the food.

“So what disaster is this?” he asks. Tony slaps the back of his head with the spatula. “Hardly sanitary!”

“It’s eggs, and this thing was hardly clean to begin with.”

“Our dishwasher never works,” Bruce protests.

Tony rolls his eyes and sits across from him with a plate of his own, and he and Bruce glance at the food and then each other. “You first,” Tony says.

Bruce glares at him, and Tony motions for him to try a bite. He pokes the fried egg with his fork before cutting off a bite and trying it. He chews slowly. The anticipation in the room is palpable. Bruce swallows. “Well, it wasn‘t lethal. Except for maybe how much salt is in it.”

“Still a victory!” Tony proclaims and starts on his own. It’s not bad, but not anything special either. After a few bites and forgetting to swallow his food first, Tony says, “You have to try the Greek breakfasts our chef makes. Divine.”

“Really? I bet.”

“Yeah, it’s—” Tony stops and clutches his chest, face scrunching together, a jolting pain stabbing under his ribs. “Shit, shit!”

Bruce jerks up, throwing his fork down, and hurries to Tony’s side, putting his arms on Tony’s back. “Hey, hey!”

Tony breathes heavy for a minute then shrugs him off. “I’m fine; I’m _fine_. Just ate too fast. Heartburn and all.”

Bruce looks down at the eggs and says, “Or too much sodium. The doctors told you to avoid that. I’m such an idiot, I should have remembered—”

“Oh shut up Bruce Tapestry. You’re not an idiot; you beat me out of top of the class freshmen year.” Tony looks back at Bruce‘s hands still on his shoulder and back and smirks. “And you can get your hands off me anytime now.” Tony hears Bruce sigh as he pulls his hands away. Tony looks at him defensively. “What? It’s just heartburn. Happens to the best of us, and I am the best of everyone, so—”

“You been taking your medicine?” Bruce asks.

“Every-morning,” Tony replies, tight-lipped. “You know that.” He turns around in the chair so he’s half-facing Bruce, putting a hand on Bruce’s chest. Feeling the heartbeat. “Worry about your mom,” he says after a minute. He pulls his hand off Bruce’s chest. “Not me.”

“Like that will happen,” Bruce says but Tony doesn’t hear it.

\- - - -

Two days later, Bruce watches Tony blazing through homework on the floor of his room as Bruce not-reads a book on the bed. The last few days, Bruce has spent a long time imagining what Pepper was like. _“She used to_ , _”_ Tony’d said. Sadly. And not because he’d lost a lover, but because he’d lost a _friend_. For instance, what Bruce is. Tony Stark is lonely when it comes to friends. Bruce can recognize it from the look in his eyes when two boys in the hall are joking with each other, shoving each other‘s shoulders and calling each other pals. Bruce walks over and plops on the ground next to him.

“What we working on?”

“Calculus.”

“Little advanced for a sophomore,” Bruce says with a mocking grin.

Tony smiles.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

“It okay if I bring a girl over? Feel free to tell me to fuck myself,” Tony says two days later at school while they’re walking down the hallway. Bruce sees Thor and Steve in the hallway, and waves at them. They’re too busy talking to each other to notice, or maybe they decided they hate Bruce or always did secretly behind his back. Bruce blinks away the thought and turns to Tony.

“Would you hate me if I said you’re gonna have to just go to her house?”

“Vaguely. Not really though,” he adds, grinning. Bruce looks at Tony smiling a minute too long. If Tony’s mind doesn’t end world hunger, his smile sure as hell will. “So, I probably won’t be going home tonight. Me and this cutie Peggy. Best part: I think Rogers has a crush on her.”

“If Steve likes her, why would you sleep with her?”

“To piss him off. Duh.” They round the corner to their chemistry class. “Besides, they’re not even dating or anything. She doesn’t have to sleep with me, you know.”

Tony walks ahead of him, and Bruce rolls his eyes, adding quietly, “Like anyone could resist.”

“Hm?” Tony asks as they sit down, dropping their books in front of them. “Say something?”

Bruce catches his tongue. “Ah shit, no. Nothing.” The teacher starts lecturing about something Bruce and Tony mastered ages ago, so he whispers to Tony, “I just don’t think you should do it with her. You could really hurt Steve. And that girl.”

“One: the entire goal _is_ too hurt Steve, and, two: it’s common knowledge Tony Stark doesn’t do relationships. Pepper made sure to tell every girl in school I didn’t, along what an ungrateful asshole I am, but I did entirely deserve it.”

“Why’s that? Because you didn’t like her back?”

Tony bites his lip and pretends to copy something from the board like he actually needs to learn it.

“Tony?” Bruce presses. Tony glances at him, then looks away with stress and guilt drooping his features.

“Because I made her think I did.” Bruce raises a brow and Tony takes a breath in. “I like the attention. When people are attracted to me, I flirt back just for the ego boost. Pepper I dated, monogamous for half a year before I slept around like I always do. I guess I just like knowing I’m someone’s everything. Or, at least, that they really like my face and ass.”

Right now, with his mom sick, Tony _is_ Bruce’s everything.

Tony scoffs at himself and shakes his head. “Unfortunately, such behavior makes me pretty much untenable to be around. I’m a jackass to boys, and girls I can’t keep my hands off.”

“Sounds like you need to try putting your hands on a boy and being a jackass to a girl,” Bruce quips. Tony shimmies into his shoulder and turns his head to whisper into Bruce’s ear.

“How about I put my hands on you, Bruce Banner?”

Bruce shakes his head and pushes Tony away, ears tipping red. “Shut up—”

“Speaking of shutting up,” their science teacher starts, and Tony and Bruce remain quiet for the rest of the period.

That night, Bruce receives a text from Tony.

_add another tally mark bruce tapestry!  
|| Tony  <3-_

Bruce almost misses the signature change, but then his smile falls and he doesn’t.

At least, he figures, with Tony being with other people, it’ll be easier for him to drift out of this phase. Bruce figures it will happen any time now.

\- - - - - - - -   - - - -   ------- - - - - -   -

A week later: still hasn’t happened. What has happened, however: Bruce’s mom healed and began working again; fixes on Stark manor’s electronics were almost complete; and Steve Rogers punched Tony Stark so hard in the face both Stark’s eyes were black.

“I told you not to screw her,” Bruce says. They are lying on Bruce’s bed, Bruce holding a bag of frozen peas over Tony’s eyes. Tony sighs.

“I know I probably should have listened to you, but the look on Roger’s face was worth it.”

“If I didn’t step in, he would have killed you. And with your heart condition, that wouldn’t have taken a lot,” Bruce adds.

“Christ, what are you, my girlfriend?” Tony says. Bruce pushes the peas aggressively into his face. Tony flails his arms up to pull them off. “Too much cold too quick, gah! Ok, ok, I’m sorry, man.” He rubs his eyes and Bruce can’t help but notice just how puffed out they are. “I should have listened to you.” Bruce reaches down and touches the purple bags, pulling them apart so Tony can do more than just squint for a minute. “Bruce?” he asks.

Bruce pulls his hand back abruptly, averting his eyes. “It’s really swollen. My mom is gonna freak out when she gets home. Should we call your dad?” His words come out too quick. He almost stutters.

“Howard doesn’t give a shit; don’t waste your calling minutes on it. You people have limited minutes, right?” Tony asks.

“The company doesn‘t charge us anymore, remember? And what was that about ‘us’ people?”

“You know, Welfare-checkers? Slumdogs?” Tony whispers the last one as though it is a swear: “ _Food-stampees?_ ” Bruce picks up the bag of peas menacingly. Tony puts his fingers up in an ‘X’ over his face. “Sanctuary! Come on, show some mercy. Beggars can’t be beaters!”

“That’s it,” Bruce says and jumps him, and now they’re wrestling because hell if two black eyes or anything could ever stop Tony Stark. But maybe they can slow him down because this time Bruce gets Tony pinned to on the floor, his arms over his head and Bruce laughing into his chest. “You have no upper body strength, Stark.”

“Shut up.”

“Did you seriously think Steve wouldn’t beat the shit out of you? You are a walking stick. Really thin. Sexy and all, sure, but—” Tony lunges. Bruce gives in and lets Tony put him back. They roll over a few times, vying for dominance, and then Bruce’s leg brushes against Tony’s crotch. Bruce is suddenly hyper-aware of every spot Tony’s body is touching his. He realizes he is probably the worst crush-haver ever because he sometimes forgets he even likes Tony like that at all.

Bruce wriggles out from under him and calls time-out to use the bathroom, where he just sits for a while and washes his face with cold water. He checks and isn’t hard, which is a good thing given he’s only had time to jack off the night Tony was out with Peggy and a few times in the communal showers since Tony moved in. His tolerance for boners must be improving. Bruce realizes how inane that sentence and his whole situation really is. In love with one the richest, hottest kids on the planet. He looks himself in the mirror. Really hates all his features. His cheeks are too fat and his nose doesn’t line up with his eyes. Face wrinkles when he smiles. Acne. He clears his head and turns away from the reflection and walks back out. Tony’s sitting on the bed and from his face Bruce can tell immediately that something’s wrong.

“Tony, what is it?”

Tony’s cell phone is held limply in his hand and Tony looks at him. “Dad’s outside. Repairs were finished early. He wants my shit and me packed and ready to go in a half hour.” Then Tony’s phone buzzes again and he adds, “And he does not want to hear ‘any shit about it.’”

Bruce tries to say something but can’t. After a minute, he finds his tongue.

“I‘ll… help you pack.”

“Alright.”


	9. Filler Carter

\- - - **Chapter 9: Filler Carter- - - - - -- -- -   -**

Steve sits on Thor’s beanbag, his head in his hands. Loki and Thor are on the bed flipping through a library catalog.

“I just punched a kid with heart disease. In the face. Twice”

Loki flips a page. “This whole ‘Steve-almost-kills-Tony-then-angsts-to-us-about-it-in-Thor’s-room’ thing is getting kind of old, don’t you think?” he says, keeping his eyes on the catalogue. There’s a sale on all classics from the 19th century. Thor grabs the book out of Loki’s hands, and throws it onto the floor. Loki looks at him and Thor glares.

“Our friend Steve is in distress. We should at least give him our attention.” Loki sighs and Thor diverts his attention to Steve. “Now for you, I would attempt lightening up on yourself, bro” Thor adds. “With what Tony did to Peggy, your reaction is understandable.”

Steve looks at him sideways. “Okay, I know I’you guys have been gone on a family outing or whatever for the last few weeks, but what the hell kind of drugs did you give Thor to get him saying ‘ _bro’_?”

“Adderall,” Loki says off-hand. Thor nudges his shoulder.

“No such thing!” There is a silence and Steve looks at Thor to go on. Thor clears his throat. “Well, it is a matter of growing up. I figured I would, at some instance, have to change my language, and, also, the persons ridiculing myself-- _me,_ I mean--for such speaking habits were becoming most… annoying.”

Steve looks at him and shrugs. “Dude, talk however you want. It’s better to talk weird then act weird.”

“Yes,” Loki says, rolling his eyes, “Besides, if anyone is hurting you, we can always get Steve to maim him.”

Steve opens his mouth to yell at Loki, but Thor interrupts him.

“Yes, well.” Thor starts. Steve closes his mouth and looks at him. “Hard to find a job that would take a person with such speaking patterns as I-- _me_ \--seriously.” Thor slams his head against the backboard of the bed. “Though old habits desist hard.”

“You could be a kindergarten teacher?” Steve suggests, eyes narrowed in contemplation. “Didn’t you say you wanted to work with kids?”

Thor nods, but Loki just laughs. “Right, but then he’d have to work with parents, too, and I don‘t think they would understand why their brat‘s sugar-daddy is bringing King Arthur week to parent‘s night every meeting.”

Steve looks at Loki in disbelief. “Why do we hang out with you?” he asks.

Loki grabs the catalogue from the floor and marks off a title with sharpies. “Dunno. Maybe you two just need some black to counteract all the blond in the room.”

Steve rubs the skin on his forehead in circles. “Unbelievable.” He takes a deep breath and turns back to Thor. “But seriously Thor. I like the way you talk. It‘s… characteristical.”

“That’s not a word,” Thor and Loki say simultaneously, then look at each other. Steve raises a brow.

“We read a lot,” Thor explains. “Well, I engage-- _do_ \--a lot, by least. _At_ least. Ugh.” Steve smiles and stands up, strolling over to them with his hands in his belt loops and a devious glint in his eyes.

“Ah, Comrades, so say you two engage in the vieweration of literaturations in time of frequentation?” Steve sits on the bed with a wide smile and puts his arms around both the brothers. Loki shrinks away from it; Thor frowns at Steve.

“Steve--” Thor warns. Loki points a finger up.

“Wait, frequentation is actually a word, so only punch him twice.”

Steve throws his hands up in front of him. “Say you that?! For such speakrations of this documentation, you two would engage in… uh…”

“Giving you lacerations?” Loki suggests.

“Violent temptations?” Thor adds.

Steve glances from Thor to Loki and back. “Not beating the crap out of me for trying to make Thor realize being weird isn’t necessarily a bad thing?”

“But, that, my friend, would not rhyme,” Thor says. Steve laughs, but his laugh stops when he remembers he punched someone with heart disease in the face.

“Well, why’d you even hit him?” Loki asks later when they are settled on the bed with a Stephen Toger’s Captain America movie in the VHS. Steve sighs and explains it all from the beginning.

\--- - - --- - - --- -   -

Two weeks earlier, Steve plunks his tray across from Loki and Thor, dopey eyes and a dopier smile adorning the love-lost look on his face.

“Alright, so who or what exactly shoved gumdrops in your cavities?” Loki asks, picking at his tray.

“Peggy Carter,” Steve says, jumping forward in his seat. “She transferred into my Home Ec. class, and oh my God! I think I want to marry her. She wants to join the military like I do, goes to the same church, has this perfect brown hair, her body is ridiculous, and her smile is just… God,” he finishes, closing his eyes and sighing.

“She is a preferable woman, then?” Thor asks, wiggling his eyebrow.

“Preferable? She is the preferred! I mean we talked for one and a half hours and never ran out of things to say. And let me tell you, when we’re co-officers in the military, we are going to make one hell of a duo. She‘s smart, you know? In the way a lot of people now-a-days just aren‘t, no offense. Really, I’ve never met anyone else who was as obsessed with foreign policy as I am.”

“Steve, could you keep your erection under the lunch table at least?” Loki asks. Steve and Thor ignore him.

“So this woman and you have just met? Does her heart drum for you also?”

“I hope! I don’t know. I mean, like, maybe. We just met, but she was smiling a lot. And laughed at, like, everything I said. And I think she pulled her shirt down a bit lower at one point.”

“And, Brother Steve does have the build of royalty. She would be unwise to not take interest.”

“Football does quite a bit for your muscles, let me tell you. And ROTC on the weekends and summer isn’t exactly slowing me down if you know what I mean.”

Loki bites his apple. “You know, every time you answer Thor like he just spoke a legitimate sentence when he talks all weird-assly you’re only enabling him.”

Steve keeps his eyes on Thor and reaches with his right arm across the table, poking his pointer finger in Loki’s cheek. Loki bends away from it. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for the off switch,” Steve says, continuing to prod Loki’s face. Thor shakes his head.

“A search in vain, my friend. Many trials I’ve had over years far more than your own.”

“Maybe I’ll find something you won’t,” Steve says and Loki stands up deadpan with his lunch-tray.

“I’m gonna go let you two be blond for a little bit; call me back when the collective IQ tips 80 again.” Loki walks away, leaving to two to squeal over Peggy Carter. He is supposed to be leaving on an apparent ‘family outing’ with his apparent ‘family’ this weekend, and is expected to survive an entire week with Thor and the _Odinsons_. Mr. Odinson is still at Loki’s neck, and the only reason Loki even accepted the dumb invitation was to give Stark some cool-down time from being pissed at him for telling Steve he has heart issues, which is apparently a big deal despite it not mattering at all.

But then it turned out Stark was too distracted with his new boyfriend Banner to even remember Loki exists, so Loki is being forced on this trip with nothing to show for it. He sighs and tilts his lunch at the trashcan, watching the food slug off the tray into the bin.

\--- - - --- - - --- -   -

Tony notices Peggy one day at lunch when she sits with a group of girls at Tony’s usual table. The first thing he notices is how her breasts pull the buttons of her blouse against the fabric and the way she can wrap her lips of a burrito and bite half of it down in one go. He picks up his tray, and plops it down between her and Vanessa. He strikes up some casual conversation about nothing with Vanessa, then turns his attention to Peggy.

“Tony Stark,” he says, extending a hand. “I believe we haven’t met before?”

She takes his hand, giving him a firm handshake that hurts Tony’s hand slightly. “Peggy Carter. I’m not new, but my schedule got changed around so I’m in this lunch now since Home Ec. is now during my old lunch period.”

“Really?” Tony says. He smiles. Girls have told him they love his smile. “You like Home Ec.? I hear Mr. Ray grades his cupcakes pretty intensely.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I love it, actually. Cooking is awesome. I’m a little awful at it, though.”

Tony shrugs, his eyes glossing over with predation. He smirks. “I’m sure you make up for it with your other talents.”

Her face tints red and she glances away with a smile to match Tony’s own. Tony scoots a little closer.

“I try my best,” Peggy says. “But, hey. Come over my house some time and I’ll show you my real talent lies.”

“Was that a sexual advance?” Tony asks, putting his hand over his heart in mock-dramatics. “Why, Miss Carter, I never!”

“Sexual—oh, no.” She laughs. “No, um. We actually have a mini shooting range in my back yard. I can hit a bull’s-eye from fifty feet away with my pistol.” She makes a gun with her hand and puts it at Tony’s nose and shoots. “Bam, just like that.”

“Well, hopefully the bull’s eye isn’t me.”

Peggy looks at him playfully. “Hopefully.”

The bell rings, and Tony leaves lunch with a smirk and Peggy Carter’s phone number programmed into his phone.

\--- - - --- - - --- -   -

Steve has known Peggy Carter for a week and a half, and is definitely in love with her. Definitely. He asks for her phone number three days after meeting her, and once he has it, they text every day. Steve calls her on the phone and they goof around for hours until it’s time to go to bed at 9:00pm or until one of them has to leave. Everything goes great until Steve asks Peggy what she’s doing Friday night.

Tony has known Peggy Carter for a week and a half, and is definitely going to fuck her. It’s inevitable really. He goes over her house three days after meeting her and watches Peggy shoot guns and asks her if there is anything else she’d like to make shoot. It’s an awful innuendo, but Peggy rolls her eyes and smiles with a glint of attraction and asks if she could head over to his place Friday night. Tony will have to run it by Bruce since he’s staying with him, so he tells Peggy that if his place is off the menu, they can always meet by the park 15 minutes off from Stark Mansion no one’s _technically_ allowed in after 8:30pm. Tony hasn’t slept with anyone since his operation—excluding Bruce, but then again that wasn’t exactly the kind of sleeping together Tony had in mind—and misses the feeling of another person beneath him. He misses the pleasure. He texts Peggy later to confirm that they’re meeting at the park Friday after Bruce tells him his house is out of the picture.

Steve doubletakes at his phone.

_well friday I actually have a date! with that really cute tony kid from our lunch?  
~Peggy!_

_Tony Stark?_

_yeap that’s the one  
~Peggy!_

_I hope you have a great time._

_me too :) and thanks for being my friend steve. i don’t really have a lot of people im close too. i guess most guys don’t like a girl whose dream is to fire up assault rifles instead of ovens  
~Peggy!_

Steve tries very hard not to bang his head against the wall of him room and spits out a reply instead. Except the reply takes him about 10 minutes to type because Peggy is worthy of proper spelling and grammar, and Steve’s eyes sometimes mix up letters when he’s looking at them, so it takes him extra-long to check it. Also he may have spent the first five minutes just thinking of what to say.

_You’re perfect for that. For being strong and not letting anyone stop you… Tony’s lucky to have you. But be careful with him. He has a bit of a reputation._

_don’t worry; we’re just having fun. he's not the kind of guy I’d want to date. . . . or that any girl would want to date for that matter LOL! he’s kind of a shark.  
~Peggy!_

_So why are you seeing him?_

_ive always been kinda uncomfortable with sex but I want to get over that. tony may be a heart breaker but word in the girls locker room is that he’s insanely considerate in bed and stuff. i mean, I don’t want to be totally inexperienced when I do start dating someone I care about  
~Peggy!_

Steve is unsure if he should be happy Peggy doesn’t actually like Tony, or distraught that she just wants to sleep with him. Steve takes a deep breath and puts his game-face on. It’s time to bring out the cavalry.

_Well I could always help you out with that too you know ;)_

But the minute Steve presses “send,” the cavalry turn into mice and scatter every which way, leaving Steve unarmed against Peggy’s attack. What idiot would send that? He made it sound like he just wanted her the same way Tony did.

_i don’t want your help with that  
~Peggy!_

Oh. Alright. He’s unarmed in No-Man’s Land with bazookas firing from either trench. He’s hit dead-on. Pain and embarrassment flood through him and how the hell does Tony make this look so _easy?_ He starts to tap out a reply when his phone buzzes again. He looks at it.

_you're more the person I want to be ready for than the one I want to get ready with  
~Peggy!_

Then suddenly, silence ices through the trenches and bullets evaporate in puffs of smoke and _Peggy Carter wants to date Steve Rogers._ Steve throws his phone on his bed and does a dance in his room, turning on his phone and calling Bucky, who’s still off doing god-knows-what in Louisiana after his family moved a few years ago, and then text Thor and Phil (who was abroad in Paris for the semester), and everyone else on his contact list because Steve has so much happiness he is going to burst if he can’t let it out to someone.

Phil’s text in particular summarizes his situation: _I have never found someone so happy that his crush is about to have sex with someone else._

But really, Steve’s way too happy to care.

\--- - - --- - - --- -   -

Saturday morning, Steve texts Peggy first thing.

_You okay?_

The reply is instant.

_Better than okay :)  
~Peggy!_

And that’s that.

\--- - - --- - - --- -   -

Steve sees Peggy and Tony in the halls Monday morning, Peggy chatting up Jane from Chemistry, and Tony laughing about something with Bruce across the hallway. Tony and Peggy make eye-contact. Tony nods at her, and Peggy smiles back, but then looks away to talk more to Jane. Steve kind of wants to punch Tony, but it’s not like Steve has a claim on Peggy or anything. Then Peggy sees him and her eyes light up. She smiles with all her teeth and runs up to him. Apparently, her ROTC camp gave her an award for having the fastest mile swim at Sunday’s meet. Steve smiles back. Everything is good.

Then Tony makes the mistake of talking.

They’re in Gym class stuck with a sub for Mr. Odinson, Thor and Loki missing from the class also since it’s apparently family vacation week in the Odinson household. The sub just tells them to get a basketball and look like they are doing something. Steve is opens the equipment room door and Tony walks up and leans on the wall besides him, smirking. Bruce is off talking to the substitute about getting called out early to see his mom when Tony speaks.

“That Peggy girl, am I right?” he says simply. Steve bristles and turns to him.

“Excuse me?”

“Nah, I get it. I totally see what you see in her. But, just saying, she’s kind of a weirdo. Wanted to kiss me when her breath smelled like her dinner and I swear, it’s not that hard to wrap your lips over your teeth when giving a blowjob. I mean, she’s cute, but I guess she’s just a little desperate for my taste—”

Steve Rogers punches Tony Stark so hard in the face both Stark’s eyes turn black. He then asks Peggy Carter out on a date. She says yes.

Steve lasts one day before he runs to Loki and Thor’s, overcome with guilt and wheezing because he doesn’t have a car yet and literally had to _run_ to their house a few miles away. Thor lets Steve in, and they go into Thor’s room and talk.

\--- - - --- - - --- -   -

The first Monday at school after Tony moves out, Bruce finds a dish of sautéed vegetables wrapped in plastic and sitting inside his locker with a note taped to the top. ‘ _Outside for lunch today. Dad update’_ There’s no signature, but Bruce knows who it’s from. He folds the note into his shirt pocket and thinks about it all through Trigonometry.

At lunch, Bruce sees Tony sitting at their usual table, fiddling with something on his iPhone. Tony glances up at him, grins, then jogs over and hugs him. Bruce bristles, then returns the motion, wrapping his arms around Tony’s torso. Their bodies are warm together.

“Dad had me on lock-down all weekend. No phone, no internet, no leaving. He made me do _bonding_ activities,” Tony says into his shoulder. Bruce releases the hug and looks at him. Tony’s eyes are still swollen.

“I was worried he was mad at you with how he made you leave so quickly. Was it because you got hurt so bad?”

Tony rolls his eyes and laughs. “Nah, my dad wouldn’t notice if I broke all the bones in my body. He was probably just getting mad that I liked your mom more than I liked him. It’s not like he came to visit me at your place after I got hit. He was probably worried he’d get shot or something,” Tony finishes with a chuckle.

“It’s happened before,” Bruce says looking to the side. “Not to me or my family, but we’ve had the whole fourth floor taped off for a month because of shooting.”

Tony’s eyes darken a notch. “You know, you two need to get out of there or something,” he says, feigning nonchalance.

“I’ll live,” Bruce replies. He turns away to start on the stir fry Tony left him, but Tony grabs him by the shoulder and faces him again.

“You better,” Tony says.

“I promise.” Tony nods and pulls his hand off his shoulder. Then Tony starts laughing, putting his arm around Bruce’s shoulder and collapsing down next to him.

“Jesus Christ, what Hollywood trash flick are we in now, huh? It just would kinda suck a lot if you weren’t around. Not often I meet a guy who can actually stand me.”

Bruce looks at Tony’s smile and sees right through him. It’s strange to see someone with as few actual friends as Bruce has, but what Tony needs right now is normalcy, so Bruce shrugs out of his grasp and shoves him, joking back, “Where’d you get the impression I could stand you?”

Tony laughs, and Bruce smiles too, glad to make Tony laugh forever. They eat sitting thigh-to-thigh, Tony’s jeans warm against his. Bruce thinks about kissing Tony. He won’t ever, though. Instead he pushes his glasses up, and when Tony goes to throw out their food, Bruce stays back alone while the bell for the end of lunch screeches throughout the building. Bruce Banner wants to kiss Tony Stark, but he wants a friendship with Tony even more. It’s all Bruce can hope for; it’s all he wants.

Bruce Banner is such a liar.


	10. Curveball

\- - - **Chapter 10: Curveball- - - - - --  -- -   -**

Bruce blows him off on Sunday. Tony stares at the message on his phone over and over as though the words on it are going to change.

 _Sorry its last minute but I can’t hang out today—date w/ a girl I met at mom’s work  
_ _-Bruce_

Pressing his lips together, Tony shuts off his phone. Is kidding him right now? They had been planning to start Iron Man model since before Tony’s surgery, and now that they finally have a date set, Bruce shuts it off for some girl. Sure, Tony has spent his share of nights originally planned for Bruce in some lovely nobody’s bed, but he's always given Banner at least a few days’ notice. Now it’s too late into the weekend for Tony to make other plans. He’ll end up spending the weekend ignoring Howard’s half-assed attempts to “bond” with him.

 _“Mister Stark, I really don’t think you should be switching me off right now,”_ Jarvis chimes. Tony looks at his phone lying discarded on the bed. During his time in recovery at the hospital, Tony had started working on translating Jarvis into an iPhone app. He’d managed to get Jarvis’s speech synthesis online yesterday in a rush of coding and algorithms he was only able to figure out by texting 1-800-Bruce all day. Speaking of which, how could Bruce have spent the entirety of Saturday talking to Tony and not mention the date? Tony picks up his phone and flicks it back on.

 _Tony? Are you mad? I’m sorry, there’s just no other day her parents could drive her to my house; she lives two hours away  
_ _-Bruce_

 _I promise we can work on the model after school Monday  
_ _-Bruce_

Perfect punctuation, Tony notices. Bruce only does that when he’s angry or worried.

 _I’m sorry.  
_ _-Bruce_

Tony is tempted to hurt him, to say something simple like ‘Don’t mess it up’ that would make Bruce pick at his fingernails for the next month, but for all the people Tony’s willing to hurt, Bruce isn’t one of them, so Tony instead speaks to Jarvis, telling him to message Bruce:

 _It’s fine. If you need pointers, call me.  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

He’s not going to answer if Bruce calls, obviously. Bruce responds with another apology and a ‘ _wont be necessary ;)’_ with a goddamn winky face at the end like Bruce would be getting to second base or something. No one knows the game and its players better than Tony Stark, and Tony Stark knows that Bruce Banner isn’t a home-ru. He’s a strike-out.

Still, a feeling boils under Tony’s fingertips just where he can’t reach it. If there’s one thing Tony’s learned about affection, it’s that it’s graded on a curve. The more Bruce gives to someone else, the less he has for Tony, and Tony knows he’s being selfish, but he can’t stand to lose another best friend. First there was Rhodney who moved across the country, then Pepper who scarcely looks at him anymore, and finally, Bruce whose detachment will all start because some girl finally noticed that even if Bruce can’t hit, he’s still a catch.

And it’s annoying. Tony decides to start the Marks model by himself. On a whim, he sends a message to Rhodney’s old phone number. Though they’d agreed long distance friendships weren’t a good idea, it’s not as though they can’t talk now that the pain of losing each other has mellowed out.

 _building iron man. functional. skype me?  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

Twenty minutes later, Jarvis alerts Tony that he has a message from Mr. Rhodes.

 _Nice to hear from you too tony.  
_ _-Rhodney_

Rhodney’s mad, which is ridiculous. They’d agreed on this. Better to end as best friends then watch Rhodney get Californicated out of Tony’s life. Still—

 _i had forgotten how many people I actually liked. even a you in california is better than these idiots. two years and a lot of catching up to do. with any luck, we’ll be besties by sun down  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

Tony hits send with a smirk because Rhodney had always hated it when Tony acted arrogant.

Rhodney’s reply is curt, vitriolic and utterly hilarious. They don’t work on the Iron Man model, but three hours later Tony knows all about Rhodney’s sweetheart from the City of Angels, the annoying asswipes on Rhodney’s cross country team, and how utterly idiotic the rest of Rhodney’s robotics squad are. The conversation feels like home. Tony tells Rhodney about the surgery, Steve Apple-Pie Rogers, the subsequent fucking of Steve Apple-Pie Rogers’ not-girlfriend, and everything else in the world bar Bruce whom Tony is intent to not think about for the rest of the night.

Tony’s intentions, of course, fall flat when Rhodney crashes at 2am pacific time, and Bruce finally gets around to telling Tony what happened.

 _made out in the back of the truck at the drivethrough. another date this thursday! sorry again. sorry. Sorry.  
_ _-Babblekins_

Tony has a caustic reply on the tips of his thumbs, but before any vitriol he _has_ to ask about it.

 _Babblekins?  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

 _she might have stolen my phone. for a few minutes… you’re never letting me live that down are you?  
_ _-Bruce_

 _Of course I will, babblekins. babblebrook… Babblebruce!  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

It’s easy to fall back into banter. Their back-and-forth reminds Tony that, yes, they’re still friends and that even if affection is on a curve, there’s still room left for Tony. Still, he doesn’t like not being in control. Trusting Bruce is an issue. Tony would prefer to have Bruce just need him blindly but people aren’t as single-threaded as Tony wishes, and a voice in the more introspective section of his brain reminds him that this is exactly how he had felt with Pepper and exactly why Pepper doesn’t talk to him anymore.

“Key difference,” Tony says aloud for Jarvis to record, “Between Bruce and Pepper: I do not want to have sex with Bruce. That’s what cost me Pepper. Friends are different than girlfriends. Remind me of this next time Banner has a date.”

Jarvis affirms that he will, though, after a second’s computations, Jarvis adds something. “Perhaps, Mr. Stark should also consider his own need to feel acce—”

Tony shuts his phone and Jarvis off. It’s time to sleep anyways. In his dreams, there are scalpels and arteries. In the morning, he’ll wake up sweaty from it all.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -

Betty is nice, Bruce thinks. Betty is very nice, and even though he feels awful about ditching Tony, he would feel worse about ditching Betty who isn’t as emotionally steeled as his friend is. Plus, even though Tony doesn’t know it, Bruce spending time without him is a great idea. It’ll help him get over the half-hard-ons he gets when Tony’s shoulder brushes his and the dreams like the one three nights ago where Bruce learned exactly what Tony’s stubble felt like against his own.

School is slow the next morning. In Biology, he and Tony do a lab about dropping fish or something else Bruce only vaguely focuses on because Tony is not talking to him as much as usual, which is ridiculous because Bruce finally getting ‘tail,’ as Tony would call it, seems like the kind of thing Tony would never shut up about.

“Hey, are we cool?” Bruce asks with as much aplomb as he can manage with his stomach feeling like it’s folding over itself. Tony glances up.

“Yeah. I’m moody. Blame my robots.”

“Jarvis? You programmed Jarvis.”

“Then blame me,” Tony snaps. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Sorry.” Then after a second he adds, “Of course we’re cool. Relax.”

Just hearing it out loud helps Bruce’s muscles to unwind and his stomach to settle. Even if Tony’s lying, which he probably is, at least they’re fine for now. Bruce and Tony finish the lab. At best, Bruce thinks, they’re going to get a B.

(They get an A-.)

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -

“So, who is she again?” Tony asks outside at lunch because he’s calm enough now to handle Bruce’s response.

“What, you jealous or something, Sweetheart? You know I only love you.” Bruce accentuates his words by slinging an arm over Tony and mock-cooing into his ear. Slipping out of his grip, Tony shakes his head.

“’Course not, Darling. It’s just that she seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Is she even real? Do you have a picture of something?”

Betty is real, Tony learns from the pixelated selfies adorning the ‘Latest Photos’ section of Bruce’s flip phone. She’s entirely average, but visually out of Bruce’s league enough to make Tony raise an eyebrow. “So when’d you two meet?” he asks.

“The weekend after Steve rearranged your face. We were both changing an irritable octogenarian’s bedpans at my mom’s work.”

“Which equates to you touching her presumably non-octogenarian tits some twenty days later, I’m assuming.”

Bruce smiles like a dope and nods. He looks almost starstruck enough to make Tony forgive him, but the the words are already out of Tony’s lips, “I started the Marks model without you. Turns out my old friend Rhodney, despite being halfway across the globe, is still pretty good at CAD development. Wireframing and all that.”

“Huh,” Bruce says like he knows something Tony doesn’t. “Odd that you two could start it considering you’d left the blueprints along with the doll itself with me on Friday.”

“It was mostly conceptual.”

“Right.” Watching Bruce get anxiou reminds Tony of the meditation technique he’d shown Bruce that night a few months back. He watches Bruce bite his lip, fingers twitching slightly. “Look, Tony. She really wanted too, and I, unlike you, almost never get girls who actually like me.”

Tony interrupts him.

“Already forgiven, Tiger.” And really, it is because Bruce is clearly beating himself up worse than Tony was planning to. Tony touches Bruce’s upper arm. “Really. It’s fine. Breathe.”

When Bruce twines his hand over Tony’s, Tony is about to say something about ‘no homo’ until he realizes Bruce isn’t holding his hand; he’s gripping it like a lifeline. Bruce’s nod is stiff and measured. “Sorry,” he says.

“Cutting off blood circulation to my fingers here.”

Bruce immediately recoils his hand. Before he can apologize again, Tony is shoveling food from what the cooks made that morning onto Bruce’s tray and getting up to throw his bag into the trash.

“Later Babblebruce,” he coos as he leaves Bruce in his dust. He hears Bruce call out in protest, but Tony’s already halfway across the cafeteria, and even if he had heard Bruce saying not to call him that, it’s not like he would have listened.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -

Bruce and Tony get the Iron Man model’s frame built in two months with excessive Skype assistance from Rhodney, who Bruce thinks is tied with Betty for the smartest person he knows after Tony and himself. The model doesn’t do anything yet, but the exoskeleton’s motherboard board is ready to be programmed, and even a chemistry-zealot like Betty can tell the algorithms won’t be too hard to code in as far as just getting the bot moving goes. Convincing Tony to go along with Betty helping them had been harder than actually building the model, however.

“If you get to Skype Rhodney, I get to Skype Betty. She’s definitely more pre-med than engineer, but so am I, and we need all the science we can get if we want this done before we’re thirty,” Bruce said the first time Tony suggested bringing Rhodney into one of their meet-ups. Tony balked, but eventually gave in, claiming that science scienced best with a ‘tit-to-dick’ ratio of at least one-to-three. As such, Iron Man, currently in stage ‘Iron Skeleton’, as Tony deemed it, came to be.

The only other major event in Bruce’s life had been Clint and Natasha getting back from their semester abroad. Tony had hosted a party for all the exchange students on their first day back to which Clint was fashionably late, and Natasha was fashionably absent. Bruce, meanwhile, had stolen a few dances with Betty before sneaking outside with her and Tony to work on the Iron Skeleton. They hadn’t gotten anything done, but when Tony’s hand had brushed against Bruce’s as he reached for a wrench, Bruce was too drunk to feel guilty about leaning into the touch.

Later, Bruce had hidden away with Betty in one of Stark Mansion’s infinite number of guest rooms. She’d taken off her shirt, and Bruce had eaten her out for a good hour before they finally fucked, slowly and closely and so hot that Bruce’s glasses had fogged over. Afterwards, Betty had been escorted home by her older sister, who Bruce decided was the man because her only comment when Bruce kissed a messy-haired, sex-struck Betty goodbye, was a knowing smirk.

Bruce had spent the rest of night at Tony’s. They’d slept in different beds.


	11. Not

**\- - -Chapter 11: Not** \--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -                                

The distance becomes an issue with Betty. She and Bruce only get to see each other every few weeks, which doesn’t do much for Bruce’s libido. He’s still not on Tony’s level of needing sex three times a week, which Bruce will admit has died down on since they’ve become friends, but Bruce is a man, and Betty is ridiculously attractive, and every time Bruce is with her, he gets over Tony all more, so sleeping with her is a win-win-win situation.

One particularly long dry spell occurs over Christmas break when Betty goes to Orlando to visit her grandparents. By New Year’s Eve, it’s been a month and a half since they last slept together. Bruce still talks to her every day, trying to turn the Iron Skeleton into an Iron Man or laughing over Christmas absurdities, but it’s hard to stay interested in pixels on a Skype-call screen when Tony is right there in the flesh, fingers covered in grease and smiling white, shiny, and kissable as he tests the torque on the Iron Skeleton’s knees and casually comments:

“You know, Veronica would still be down to screw you if the Betty respites every hit you too hard.

"Bruce chuckles. “The Veronica that gave me the fake phone number, you mean? The only thing she’d do in a room with me is laugh at me.”

The greasy cloth in Tony’s hand lowers as Tony bites his lip and glances away. “Maybe not as fake as I made it out to be at the time. I might have altered the truth a bit to get back at you for usurping me as valedictorian back then.”

Bruce picks up a wrench and points it at Tony. “One, that’s a dick move that really doesn’t surprise me considering freshmen-year-you was clinically terrible, and, two, are you telling me Veronica Mars actually gave me her number?”

“She likes thicker guys; what can I say?”

Bruce glances down at his bulging stomach and chubby arms, comparing them to Tony’s paper-flat figure and incipient biceps. Keep the shirt on with Betty next time, Bruce notes.

Tony, meanwhile, continues unaffected. “You’re a catch, though. In a dweeby, dorky, nerdy kinda way.”

“Right,” Bruce murmurs, but it still doesn’t make sense. He barely eats. Everywhere he has to be, he walks. Karate every Wednesday at 7:00pm. Tony has even admitted before that Bruce is stronger than him. Why do his thighs touch? Bruce becomes increasingly aware of the puffy fat bloating his cheeks. With a cough, Bruce remarks, “I’m not super thick.” Morbidly obese and disgusting, but not super thick.

Tony rolls his eyes. “You say it like it’s a bad thing. Thick is the new thin. Even I like something extra to grab onto. They don’t call them love-handles for nothing, Babblebrooks.”

It’s not better, but Bruce has always found it easier to pretend his anxiety doesn’t exist when Tony is around. Now is a premiere example.

“Oddly enough,” Bruce begins, “I still find the nickname ‘Babblebrooks’ more offensive than ‘Food Stamps.’ And I think most women still prefer guys like you,” he finishes with a gesture to Tony.

“The lovely Ms. Betty doesn’t.”

“Now, you,” Bruce starts, wiping the oil off his fingers with Tony’s discarded, black-stained rag. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

Tony looks up. “What? Where’d you get that idea?”

“You just get weird sometimes when I mention her. Less so now than in the beginning.”

“I’m protective of my best friend. Sue me.”

Bruce tosses the dirty rag onto Tony’s forehead. “I don’t have the assets to sue you.” Tugging the rag off his face, Tony smiles and asks Bruce if he has any plans Friday night. Bruce doesn’t, of course, but by the end of the conversation his Fridays are booked up for the next month.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -                                                                      

Steve is surprised when he receives an invite to the Coulson’s New Year’s Eve party. He goes for the sake of Phil (who’s been having a hard time adjusting to normal life ever since his, Natasha’s, and Clint’s stint in London ended) and stays for the sake of Peggy, his date, who insists on trying to sneak into where Odinsons keep their wine coolers instead of actually partying. They only get as far as the basement before Steve points out that there is nothing here and Peggy covers his mouth with her fingertip and puts her hand on his crotch and whispers, “Coulson’s family doesn’t drink,” with a smile that makes Steve’s knees shake.

They don’t have sex—Steve is adamant about waiting until marriage—but Peggy’s blowjob makes him cum so hard he sees colored dots. Afterwards, Steve pulls up his pants and notices his phone glowing with missed texts from Mom in his pocket. He pulls it out and flips it open, Peggy kissing his cheek and asking if everything is okay.

 _Steve. It’s dad. There’s been an accident. Please call.  
_ _\- Mom_

Steve drops his phone.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -                                                                      

At school, Steve’s dad is all anyone talks about. Steve’s not in class, obviously, but Tony can tell from the pregnant tension in the air that everyone’s hearts are with him. Pity Tony’s heart doesn’t work.

“No one dies from strokes. Not until they’re eighty, at least,” he says to Bruce on the way outside to lunch. There’s a fresh powder of New York snow on the ground.

Bruce pulls the flaps of his hat over his ears. “Still, Tony, it’s scary to have happen. I never knew my dad. He was a drunk, according to Mom, though my aunt maintains that Mom was the only one who drank between the two of them. Still, knowing someone and losing them or seeing them hurt is never easy. I might not be the best of friends with Steve, but I can sympathize with what he’s going through. God knows you could, Tony,” Bruce adds, giving Tony a nod. Tony sighs, brushing a clump of snow off the bench and dropping his lunch in Bruce’s lap as they sit down next to each other.

“I don’t want his dad to die, if that’s what you’re implying. I’m just saying, the whole school doesn’t have to be crying over it. Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood is fine, last I heard.”

“You’re probably right. I might text Steve later though to see how his dad’s doing.”

“You do that.”

They eat in silence until Tony breaks it.

“Pity about Coulson’s party, though. I heard you and Betty were having a great time in Mrs. Coulson’s bed. It was the first time you saw your girlfriend in what, a month?”

“And three weeks. And no, we were just kissing. Nothing noteworthy. And Steve’s dad getting a stroke did sort of kill the mood.”

“That asshole,” Tony declares dryly. Bruce stares at him for a second, and then they both start laughing. For the first time since they’ve starting sitting outside together, Bruce doesn’t notice Tony’s leg brushing against his. Betty’s thighs, naked and spread, are far more alluring.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -

Bruce does get a rain check with Betty later that week on Thursday. She’s over Tony’s house with Bruce, helping to debug the ongoing rotation issues with the Iron Skeleton’s legs. After the first hour of work, Tony conveniently excuses himself, claiming he is going out for drinks and that no funny business should occur, especially not in Guest Room #3, which happens to be mysteriously unlocked, Tony adds with a wink.

They have sex. Bruce keeps his shirt on. Briefly, while his hands are full of Betty’s breasts, Bruce wonders if this makes him bisexual or biromantic or whatever else a person could be. He likes women; he likes men. He likes Betty; he really liked Tony. Past tense. Bruce feels proud of himself for finally getting over his crush on Tony, even if it is just within the confines of his own head. After he and Betty are finished, Bruce leans in to kiss her and Betty stops, pushing him back teasingly. He leans in again, trying to capture her lips. His mouth ends up on a pillow.

“Would you knock that off?” he muffles into the pillowcase.

“Knock what off, Love?” Betty grins. Bruce pushes himself up and slides a sweat-stained hair out of his face and touches her arm, inching forward. Just as their mouths are about to touch, Betty pulls back again and starts laughing. It’s a game they’ve done before, a thousand times, like running into receding beach waves and backpedaling when they wash back up. Today, though, it’s different. There’s no reason for it. No logic to the sudden urge Bruce gets to rip off his fingernails when Betty’s guffaws scrape his eardrums. Bruce squeezes his fingers together, taking deep breaths.

“Okay,” he manages, surprised by how calm he sounds. “Let’s try that one last time, okay Babe? I just need to kiss you right now.” It would make his fingers stop twitching.

Betty smiles and pushes towards him. Then, when Bruce’s lower lip tickles her upper one, Betty jerks backwards, sticking her tongue out.

“Gonna have to try harder than that, Babblebruce.”

Bruce squeezes his fist tighter. His whitening knuckles crack, and just as Betty starts to ask what’s wrong, Bruce snaps.

“What is your problem? I asked you to stop; didn’t I just ask you to stop?” he yells, Betty recoiling at the sudden loudness. “It’s just a fucking game to you, right? Just a stupid game that doesn’t mean anything, right? Right?”

“B-Bruce?” she stammers, halfway between confusion and fear.

“No, it’s not right. Not right at all. If I ask you to not do something, don’t do it. Is that so fucking hard to understand? Do I need to draw a picture for you? A fucking wireframe?” Bruce snarls. Betty gapes at him, her mouth open and her hands wide before she dashes for her bra and her bag and sprints out the room. “Wait, Betty, I didn’t mean that!” Bruce starts, but he can already hear the front door slamming shut. She’s gone.

Bruce sits alone in the guest bed. He doesn’t move. His brain feels engorged, like it’s going to snap his skull and come pouring out of him. Betty was being nice. She was playing around. Bruce loves that game. Teasing. Why did he scream? Nothing was happening. Nothing was wrong. He hadn’t shouted at someone like that since that girl in the hallway freshmen year. Why now? What was wrong with him? A distinct urge to punch his arm passes through him. Bruce settles for mashing his forehead against the wooden bedframe until a bruise forms underneath his bangs.

When Tony comes back with a shopping cart full of drinks in-toe, he can’t tell anything is out of the ordinary until he busts into Guest Room #3 cooing, “Please tell me everyone’s decent in here!” and notices Bruce slouched on the bed with his forehead resting against the headboard. “Bruce?” No response.

Tony drops the bags from the cart and rushes onto the bed next to Bruce.

“What’s wrong? Bruce. Hey, Bruce.” Tony cups a tentative hand over Bruce’s shoulder. “Why is your head bleeding?”

Bruce winces. He isn’t moving, so Tony pushes his shoulder slightly to get a better view and—

“Do not fucking touch me,” Bruce snarls, turning to him. A streak of blood drips down the right of his nose, and Tony’s eyebrows arc up. He’s never seen Bruce this angry before.

“Yeesh, what’d she do? Say hell-no to fellatio? Ask for butt stuff? It’s okay if she asked for butt stuff.”

“Can you be serious for five seconds? Or are you too shallow for that too?” Bruce continues. “Then again, I wouldn’t expect you to know a thing about this. Not like you’ve ever had feelings for anyone or any-fucking-thing other than yourself.”

Tony then pauses, his hand dropping from Bruce’s body.

“And thanks, by the way, for lying to me about Veronica giving me her number when we first met. Shows just how trustworthy you are. Good to know this shit friendship was founded a shit lie as well. Really what I needed right now.”

“Okay,” Tony says, face blank. He stands up off the bed and cracks his knuckles and neck. “Let’s do this. Fight me.”

“What?”

“You clearly need to spar, and I’m plenty fucking ticked off now to give you a good match-up.”

“You want to fight me? I’d break your nose.”

“Try it.”

Bruce glares. Then he slides off the bed, wiping the blood off of his face. “Any rules?” Bruce asks.

“Avoid the aforementioned bone-breaking, if possible.”

“Deal.”

Tony punches first. He aims for Bruce’s gut and manages to knock Bruce back onto the bed where Tony then lunges forward to get on top of him. Bruce’s knee then connects with his rib cage, knocking the wind out of him long enough for Bruce to force him into the sheets. The pillows squish beneath Tony’s back as Bruce’s arms hold his own in a vice grip. Tony wants to give in, but he’s too proud. Instead he sucks in some air and clashes his skull against Bruce’s. Bells ring in his ears as Tony rams his fist into Bruce’s jaw. Bruce’s head snaps back and bangs against the bloody headboard, dazing him just long enough for Tony to straddle Bruce’s chest and pin Bruce’s arms down with his shins. Panting, Tony finally looks down at Bruce.

“You going to fucking explain yourself now?” Tony exhales. Bruce looks up at him, defiant, but not struggling. After a few seconds, Tony sees the exact moment the adrenaline rushes out of Bruce’s head and the fucking terror sets in.

“Oh god,” he says, face scrunching up. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Tony, I am so sorry.”

“You’re the one about to get a concussion. Not fair starting a fight if the other guy already has contusions on his skull. Self-inflicted, I’m assuming?”

Bruce glances up, trying to see the lump under his bangs. “Is it bad?”

Tony runs his hand up Bruce’s forehead, sliding his hair away from the bruise. He also shifts his shin, freeing one of Bruce’s hands so it can feel the purpling wound.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Bruce says. At first Tony think’s it’s because of the lump on his forehead, but then he notices Bruce’s eyes on the dirty patch Bruce’s knee had left on Tony’s shirt. “Did I knee you in the chest? Fuck, your heart is going to explode. It's going to fucking explode. I'm sorry.”

“I’m tougher than I look. And, really, you feel that pitcher’s mound on your forehead, and it’s me you’re worried about?”

“I just snapped.” Bruce shakes his head, biting his lips as his eyes swell red. “I fucking spazzed out on Betty, and now on you. What’s wrong with me? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Like fucking some monster; I’m sorry. Sorry.”

As Bruce starts to panic below him, Tony slides down, freeing both of Bruce’s hands, which Bruce immediately uses to cover his forehead and face.

“Hey, it’s okay, um. Pal,” Tony says. He’s not entirely sure of the protocol for this situation.

“I wish you’d have hit me harder.”

“Well, there’s always next time, hey?”

Bruce chokes out a sound between a laugh and a sob. He wipes his eyes and then looks up at Tony. “You’re not selfish.”

“Yes I am.”

Bruce continues as though he hadn’t heard him, “And I don’t care about the Veronica thing. That was ages ago.”

“It was a dick move.”

“You’re my best friend.”

“You’re mine.”

The look they share is electric, and Tony doesn’t register Bruce sitting up or himself leaning down until the bruises on their chests are touching and Bruce’s lips are against his own. They kiss for a half-second before Tony realizes what is happening. Then he jolts back. His widened eyes catch Bruce’s puffy ones as Bruce turns away shoves Tony off of him. Bruce’s arms are shaking.

“I didn’t just do that,” Bruce says. “I didn’t. Don’t hate me; it never happened; I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. Sorry.”

The repetition is offsetting. Tony swallows a clump in his throat and nods.

“I told you I was like this. You called me ‘low-maintenance’,” Bruce chokes out with a laugh. “Me. Of everyone in the fucking world.”

Tony doesn’t know what to do. He’s halfway terrified, but mostly worried. Words escape him, so Tony just grabs Bruce’s hand with his own and lets Bruce squeeze.

“I can’t stand myself,” Bruce whispers, his head leaning into Tony’s chest.

And what is Tony supposed to say to that? He can feel Bruce’s tears wetting his collarbone.

“What do I say?” Tony asks. “Tell me what to say.”

“I’m sorry.” Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

And it is okay, really, Tony wants to say, wants to think, but no it isn’t. It can’t be. It never will be again. (Tony doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but by the time Bruce is gone, the sun is rising, and Tony feels like he is going to vomit all over again.)


	12. Coping Methods I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This is a multi-part chapter. A pin ring is a part of a grenade.

 - - - **Chapter 12: Coping Methods I - - - - - --  -- -   -**

Three weeks later, Steve’s dad dies. Bruce hasn’t talked to Tony since the night he and Betty broke up, but not for a lack of trying. Unread text messages— _‘I’m sorry’, ‘would now be a bad time to say no homo?’, ‘Can we just be friends again?’_ —litter the outbox of the phone Tony had jail-broken for him months ago. There’s never once been a reply, not even a ‘ _Read at: 3:24'_  that would have told Bruce that Tony was meaningfully avoiding him, which is fine, really. If Tony wants to be friends again, he will do it on his own terms, in his own time. Bruce just has to wait.

During one particularly endless day of waiting, Bruce’s phone alights with a message from a number on his hotlist. His hotlist only has Tony and his mom on it, and Mom is at work, no texting allowed. Bruce all but pounces on his phone.

 _Bruce. Ur friend steve’s dad was just rushed into my station. He’s seizing intensely, found him collapsed on the side of the road; were transferring him to Mount Sinai now, call steve and tell him to get there ASAP I don’t have his #  
_ _\- Mom_

It’s not Tony; it’s Mom. The disappointment barely registers through the haze of panic that inundates Bruce’s mind. Does he even have Steve’s number? Yes he does, of course he does; Steve had texted him when Tony was in the hospital. A second later, Bruce is tapping on Steve’s contact and waiting one, two, three rings for Steve to pick up.

 _“_ _Bruce? What’s up? Haven’t heard from you in a while.”_

_“Your dad’s in the hospital. Mount Sinai.”_

There’s a pause on the line.

 _“Excuse me?”_

_“He was having a seizure on the side of the street by my mom’s work. They took him in and are moving him to Mount Sinai. Mom says you need to get there as soon as you can.”_

Bruce hears Steve yell to his mom over the phone line. His voice is shaking when it returns to Bruce.

_“Okay. Okay, my Mom is grabbing her keys. Text me if your Mom says anything else. Mom! I’m all set—yes, I’ll grab my jacket—no Bruce didn’t know anything else—let’s just go already!”_

The phone goes silent as Steve clicks off, leaving Bruce alone on the couch with misplaced anxiety under his eyelids that makes him want to dislocate his knuckles. He’s getting worried over Tony not fucking texting him while Steve’s dad is in the ER seizing his braincells out. What kind of person does that make him? Bruce bites his fingernails until they’re outlined with blood. He’s so pathetic. He wishes he had a knife.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -

There are no last words. No poignant ‘I love you’ or ‘I’m proud of you, son’ uttered in a final breath. Dad is cross-eye’d with drool slobbering down his chin, incognizant, inaccessible, and inhuman when the last flickers of color drain from his body. Steve doesn’t know the corpse on the hospital bed. He doesn’t know why Mom is crying over the imposter wearing his dad’s skin or why his own eyes are watering as well.

Three days later, the shock still hasn’t worn off. His dad is not inside the casket, being lowered into the ground; the muddy pair of brown loafers adorning his father’s shrine _are_ going to be worn again. Steve finds himself shaking when asked to speak about his father. The response he manages is kosher and faintly detached. Still, it makes his mother cry harder.

After the burial, Steve overhears his mom whispering to the funeral director behind the church. No one else is around.

“If you use our loan plan to pay for the service, then it will take about thirty-six months to pay off.” Steve hears his mom gulp. The director continues, “It’s eight-thousand total. You said that your husband did not have life insurance?”

“He was always so healthy,” she says.

The director nods. “They always are. Well, I know it will be difficult to get this paid off, but I want you to know that we are here for you every step of the way, Ms. Rogers. There will be an interest rate on the payments, compounded annually. It will end up being about $220 a month for the first year, and then $240, $270 and so forth for each subsequent year.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Alright. I am truly sorry for your loss. God bless.”

“God bless.”

Eight thousand dollars. His dad dies, and his mom has to pay eight thousand dollars. It’s wayward. It makes Steve want to punch something. (He settles for his pillow.)

By time he’s back in school a week later, that urge still hasn’t dissipated. Steve’s thankful that everyone is mostly avoiding him, minus the occasional ‘Are you okay?’ and ‘I’m so sorry.’ Tony doesn’t even acknowledge his existence, as per usual, which is a blast of normality Steve is grateful for. He couldn’t handle it if Tony started feeling sorry for him too. It’s not until Steve accidentally bumps into him in the hallway that Tony actually interacts with him.

“Steven,” Tony says then pauses, glancing around before continuing in a lower voice, “Just a forewarning: my dad’s been saying he wants to talk to you. I’d advise avoiding him at all costs.”

“Your dad? Talking to me? Did he say about what?”

“No idea,” Tony adds and walks past him towards his locker. Steve follows.

“Am I in trouble? Is that why you where whispering? Is it bad news? Good news?” Anything that can distract Steve from his dad’s corpse for a few seconds? “Howard Stark is kind of a big name, Tony.”

Tony sneers then says, “His big name and giant weapons are just overcompensation, Rogers. I neither know nor care about what Daddy Dearest wants with you. I’m just giving you a heads up. And the whispering was just in case Big Father decided to wiretap me like he did my first day of middle school.”

“Right,” Steve says after a minute, lingering by Tony’s locker. “Hey, can I sit outside with you and Bruce for lunch today?”

A jarring stiffness jolts through Tony’s body. Then Tony takes a long breath. “No. I don’t sit outside anymore, anyhow.”

“Why’s that? I almost never saw you in the lunch room up until a few weeks ago, despite the mounds of snow outside. Did you and Bruce have a fight or something?”

Tony slams his locker shit. “You can sit outside if you want to, but I won’t. Goodbye, Rogers.”

“Bye?” Steve calls as Tony struts away from him. Something is definitely happening between Tony and Bruce if simply mentioning Bruce yields that kind of reaction from Tony. The drama is a welcome diversion from the disarray in his own life and from the $220 due on the 31st that Steve knows his mom can’t pay. As such, Steve resolves to at least find out exactly what is going on at Stark Mansion. Later, after a dinner with only two place settings, Steve sends Bruce a text while looking up Howard Stark’s number in the yellow pages.

 _things ok b/t you and Tony? i asked him about u today and he seemed a little tense  
_ _-Steve_

 _hey! you noticed how to do phone signatures. as for tony and me, there was a bit of a falling out. we’re on rocky grounds right now but its fine. how are you fairing?  
_ _\- Bruce_

It’s an innocent question, but the last thing Steve wants to think about at the moment is himself, so he pushes Bruce for more on him and Tony instead.

 _'rocky grounds’?  
_ _-Steve_

 _more like protruding, boulder-ridden cliffs, but the metaphor holds. we fought at his house. it ended in punches  
_ _\- Bruce_

 _want me to talk 2 him 4 you?  
_ _-Steve_

 _there’s not much point in spelling out ‘you’ if you’re just going to abbreviate numbers, steve. also no, its fine. i dont want to force anything  
_ _\- Bruce_

 _no force! promise. just plain, simple snooping! i can even get clint and maybe nat to help. loki too, tho I wouldn’t trust him with anything 2 confidential  
_ _-Steve_

 _wise man. but seriously, thank you and all, but there’s no need to interfere. this just needs to run its course.  
_ _\- Bruce_

 _U know you can talk 2 me. I’ll even use proper grammer.  
_ _-Steve_

 _grammar*. also, shouldn’t I be the one offering you a soundboard for your troubles?  
_ _\- Bruce_

 _i already have everyone else doing that. i just want something to take my mind off it all. also, unrelated, but tony said his dad wanted to talk to me about something, do you have his #? mr stark’s home # isn’t in the phone book  
_ _-Steve_

 _who still uses a paper phone book? Its 212 356 0536—howard’s personal cell number that he only gave to family and friends. if he told tony about wanting to talk to you, then he probably figures tony will give you it anyway.  
_ _\- Bruce_

 _alright, thanks man! keep in touch, seriously. i'll see you around and talk to you soon!  
_ _-Steve_

 _Bye  
_ _\- Bruce_

Bruce Banner shuts off his smartphone and sighs. He gets that Steve wants some escapism—Bruce always found his through self-mutilation—but Bruce still isn’t able to think about Tony without wanting to choke himself. Tony hasn’t spoken to him for yet another week despite Bruce sending increasingly apologetic text messages every other day.

Thinking back to the kiss, Bruce swears Tony had kissed back or had, at the very least, leaned into it. Bruce isn’t an idiot. He is an observationalist and an exper tin Biology; he can tell when someone wants to kiss him or not. Flushed faces, dilated pupils, feet angled towards him. The slight parting of the lips. Every symptom was there or so Bruce thought. For all he knows about Biology, Chemistry will always be his subject of choice, and even the most rudimentary of chemists can tell that chemical imbalances, especially from anxiety, can warp observations. Tony had probably wanted to puke when Bruce had kissed him. Or punch him again. The bruises from their spat, hidden under his shirt where no one can see, still adorn Bruce’s bulging stomach. He has always hated himself without a shirt on. Now there’s even more reasons to.

The only positive aspect of the bruising is that it quells Bruce’s urge to harm himself. Whenever he feels like punching his arm, Bruce can just focus on the perennial throbbing in his ribcage and let that pain ground him. An hour later, when the worst of his wounds starts pulsing, Bruce turns on his phone. No new messages. The pain turns from a pulsing to a searing and doesn’t go away until Bruce forces himself to another listless sleep.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -                                  

That Saturday night, Tony is debugging Jarvis’s sarcasm script when an unwelcome Howard barges into the lab.

“Oh fantastic,” Jarvis drawls, making Tony smile. So the script is functional.

“Is that, um, Javin?” Howard asks. Tony ignores him. “That phone app you’ve been working on, right? Seems to be coming along nicely. Fits your personality for sure.”

Tony needs to find a slang database to import into Jarvis. Having his AI mention ‘dank memes’ would probably make Bruce laugh so hard, he’d cry, Tony thinks. Then Tony’s smile drops, and he remembers that him and Bruce aren’t friends anymore. Footsteps echo against the tile as Howard walks over.

“Regardless, you need to get dressed,” Howard says. “We’re taking the Rogers out to dinner tonight at _Masa_ ’s.”

“We’re what?”

“The reservation is in 30 minutes. You’re clearly not doing anything dire at the moment.”

“It is vitally fire, I can assure yo,” Jarvis chimes, making Tony scowl. Jarvis's speech recognition was off, and Jarvis isn't supposed to be sassing Tony.

Regardless, Tony flips his hand over, turning to his father. “Why exactly are we taking the Freedom Fighters out for food, again? Steve’s not my friend. If you knew anything about me, you’d know that.”

“Nonsense; Steve’s a good kid. And his father and I had corresponded briefly at a military event I was speaking at. That man had been in the first flight to utilize our self-piloting fighter-bombs back when he served in the air force.”

“Wonder if he go that stroke because the self-piloter’s emissions,” Tony comments, fiddling with Jarvis’s USB connector. Howard rips the cord out of his hand.

“Get. Dressed. We’re going, and you’re going to act respectfully. You of all people should know what he is going through.”

Tony glances back at Jarvis. “I’ve never had a stroke.”

“I was talking about Steve.”

Tony glares into his father’s eyes.

“’Course you were.”

They stare for a little longer before Tony concedes, stepping towards the dresser. Since Tony moved back in, Howard has made a habit of barring Tony’s lab access whenever Tony acts up. It's easiest to just go along with whatever Howard wants, Tony has learned.

At the restaurant, Steve is dressed in a pair of khakis and a button down shirt that couldn’t have cost more than $17 at Ross’s. Mrs. Rogers is in a black polyester dress with pilling on the sleeves. Tony expects Howard to make a sly comment on their wardrobe like he does with Tony whenever the hems of his jackets aren’t perfectly aligned. Instead, Howard takes Mrs. Roger’s hand and kisses it.

“You look beautiful, and your son cleans up quite handsomely,” Howard says.

Mrs. Rogers flushes and laughs, her son doing the same.

“I wouldn’t go that far, but thank you,” she replies with a smile. The suit Tony is wearing is by Gucci, $1250 dollars, custom-tailored. Tony supposes taste doesn’t matter, though, when it comes to Howard and the almighty Rogers.

Inside the restaurant, the four of them are placed in a sealed-off section of the bar corner where they can see chef Masa preparing the food. Tony and his dad sit perpendicular to Steve and his mother, Howard and Ms. Rogers next to one another, too close Tony’s comfort, but Tony doesn’t want to lose his lab access by pointing it out.

The Rogers and Howard talk about nothing. At least, Tony registers nothing. Howard reiterates the same war stories he always tells to people he’s trying to impress, and Mrs. Rogers and Steve listen as though they aren’t bored a quarter way to death. Occasionally, Steve responds to Howard’s tales with a saga of his own about the terrors of ROTC or a supposedly ‘hilarious’ training session gone wrong.

“So the mock-Captain throws a grenade into the middle of our circle, right?” Steve begins. Howard leans in with interest, and Tony swallows down a groan. “And I make an idiot out of myself. The Captain yells ‘Grenade!’ and everyone leaps for cover save me who, thinking it was an actual bomb, jumps onto the bomb and covers it with my skinny self. I mean, there were at least thirty kids in the circle, and if one body absorbed the shock, I figured there’d be a better chance of more of them surviving. I thought I was going to get reamed, but the Captain was actually proud of me. Everyone called me ‘Pounce’ after that since apparently I leapt on that thing like a leopard.”

“That’s admirable. Not often you find bravery like that nowadays.”

“It’s not brave, sir. I didn’t even realize I’d done it until everyone was staring at me and the pin ring was poking into my chest.”

Howard shakes his head. “All the more impressive.” Giving Mrs. Rogers an animated nudge, Howard whispers to her, “You know, you’ve raised a quality boy, you and your husband.”

“Thank you,” she says.

Thirty, Tony thinks. Howard loses his shit over Steve fake saving thirty people? Is that a joke? Tony’s made blueprints for machines that could save a thousand times that amount, and he doesn’t plan on getting his head shot off in a battle field when he turns eighteen either. He’ll have the rest of his life to continue helping people, and what will Steve get? A plaque in his name and some red and blue heart. Tony’s more impressive than that. He knows he is. His dad is an idiot for not seeing it. Fucking brain-dead.

“You know, I’ve always tried to get Tony to try ROTC,” Howard continues to the Rogers. “Never quite took to it, though.”

“Because of the heart thing, right?” Steve asks. “I mean, I used to have mild asthma as a kid, and I never would have been able to get through basic training if it had stuck with me.”

“Pity you had to keep breathing,” Tony murmurs. Only Howard hears him, however, and hisses to his son:

“Be polite, for once in your lifetime.”

“Sorry if I’m not buying into the stars and stripes here,” Tony snaps, this time loudly enough for Mrs. Rogers and Steve to hear. Steve tries to ameliorate the tension with a strained laugh.

“Right, Tony always has the most patriotic nicknames for me. Stars 'n stripes Rogers is the most popular, of course. Always a laugh.”

“I call you those because I don’t like you,” Tony says, resting his cheek on his hand.

Howard grabs his arm. “Is it so hard to ask for one good night with you? Just one?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

“You’re such a child,” Howard hisses.

Tony scoffs. “You’re the one gushing over Steve like he’s some vintage Captain America card.”

“Should we go?” Mrs. Rogers interjects, breaking the death-lock Tony and his father are in. Howard looks away first, taking a deep breath.

“Look, the food isn’t even here yet,” he says to her. “I’m sure Tony will be fine after he washes his face for a minute.”

“I don’t need to wash my—” Tony starts, but Howard glares at him with a scowl intense enough for Tony to know he doesn’t have a say in the matter. He pushes his chair back and stands up. “Fine. Don’t have too much fun without me,” and he storms off to the restroom with as much control as he can muster.

Washing his face does help him feel a little calmer. He’s no Bruce when it comes to stressful situations, but Howard makes Tony want to hit someone. At the moment, it’s Steve, though it’s not Steve’s fault so much as it is his idiot Dad’s. Howard has such a hard-on for soldiers. Of course he likes Steve better. Once Tony has scrubbed every facet of his face, he turns off the sink and steps back into the restaurant. Their food is on the bar, and the looks on Howard's and the Roger’s faces look like a promo image for Full House, all disgustingly friendly smiles and familial chuckles. As Tony walks up to them, he overhears Howard after the laughter dies down.

“You’re really something, Steven. Polite, strong, and driven. The marines will be lucky to have you.” Howard pauses and sighs. “You know, I wish Tony could be more like you. He always—”

Tony turns around. He capsizes and steps out the restaurant in a trance, a bout of bile rising in his throat. It’s not—the restaurant is too stuffy, the seafood is vile, and Tony has better ways to spend his nights than hanging out with Howard and Saint Steven. Swallowing down his nausea, Tony glances around the outside of the restaurant to assess where he is.

Oh, Tony thinks. He knows this street.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -

Bruce looks at the rolls on his stomach and yellowing bruises across his ribs in the body-mirror attached to his bedroom door. His body looks more disgusting than usual, he thinks, tying the purple bathrobe back around himself. Even a long, heavily masturbatory shower in one of the communal bathroom’s stalls didn’t make him feel better. He is still disgusting, overweight, and dirty. After screaming at Betty, he can't even say he has a decent personality anymore.

As he goes to dry his dripping hair, he hears Mom knocking on the front door. She had told him that she would be working either a double or a single based on what the restaurant needed that night. They must have let her off with just the dinner shift.

After another second, the knocking starts up again, making Bruce sigh. Mom must have forgotten her keys, again, he figures. Or she left them at work. What she would do if Bruce actually had a social life and wasn’t home twenty-four-ever, Bruce will never know. He towels off his hair and walks to the front door, cracking his neck as he pulls it open.

When he sees who it is, his stomach drops.

“Hey,” Tony exhales, bracing his arms against the door frame. “Your mom home?”

Bruce stares at him another second before his brain registers Tony’s words.

“Um. No. Night shifts.” As his senses come back, Bruce notices Tony is out of breath and wearing a suit that looks incongruous to the amount of sweat adorning his forehead. “Is something wrong?”

“Nope.” The reply is quick and breathless. Tony steps forward. “I can come in?”

Bruce coughs. “Yeah, yes, sure. I just showered, I can change. Won’t take a minute.” He goes to turn around and Tony stops him.

“Bruce,” he says.

“Present,” Bruce spatters, eyes locking with Tony’s. Tony moves his hand up to the side of Bruce’s head and wipes away a drop of water that had fallen on Bruce’s ear. Bruce’s heart skips.

Inching closer again, Tony tilts Bruce’s chin up with his thumb until their eyes meet and Bruce can feel Tony’s breath against his lips.

“Take off your bathrobe,” Tony says.

Bruce’s response is barely audible.

“Okay.”


	13. Coping Methods II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW

\- - - **Chapter 13: Coping Methods II - - - - - --  -- -   -**

Bruce only gets his bathrobe halfway off his shoulders before Tony’s mouth is on his. The kiss is hard enough to hurt; Tony’s stubble burns into Bruce’s skin as he lets Tony kick the door shut and fist his fingers through Bruce’s hair. Bruce gives up on divesting. He focuses instead on trying to sashay the two of them towards the bedroom without breaking the momentum of their mouths. As they step past the couch, Tony pulls away for a minute and smirks.

“Taking me to your bedroom, Banner?”

“Can’t exactly fuck on the couch. My namesake sleeps here.”

“Right,” Tony says, and, really, it’s only been a couple seconds, but every second Tony’s tongue isn’t slipping against his own is a second wasted for Bruce, so he grabs Tony’s tie and yanks their mouths back together they stumble onto Bruce’s bed.

Tony lands on top of him, Bruce with his back against the sheets in a way that is reminiscent of the last time they’d spoken to each other. This time, however, there’s no punching or yelling. This time Bruce isn’t stressed out, for once, only a little embarrassed because he’s all but naked under Tony Stark who’s wearing a suit that probably costs more than Bruce’s rent for a month.

“Why are you even wearing a suit?” Bruce asks, half-gone as Tony drops his mouth from kissing Bruce’s lips to sucking new bruises into his neck. “Not that I’m complaining.” His voice hitches on the last syllable. Tony grins against his skin.

“It’s Gucci. $1250.”

“Hot,” Bruce says, leaning up on his elbows. Tony’s teeth graze against his earlobe. “So fucking hot.”

“Me or my clothes?”

The fact that you’re a fucking millionaire. That you’re sexy. That you have abs and stubble and the prettiest fucking brown eyes and even your smile can undo me, Bruce wants to say, but settles for a breathy laugh and whispering, “D, all of the above.”

With a smug smile, Tony pushes Bruce back into the bed and slides up, straddling Bruce’s chest and locking Bruce’s arms in place with his knees. His crotch is a foot away from Bruce’s face, hidden neatly behind pinstriped Gucci couture Bruce really wants to rip off at the moment. Tongue icing over the dried cracks forming on his lips, Bruce diverts his attention back to Tony’s face, which is staring down at him.

There’s a moment where their breaths synchronize. Bruce can feel his heartbeat in his throat. He glances again at Tony’s crotch then back up when he feels Tony’s hand teasing the side of his ear.

“You gonna suck me off, Banner?”

“You gonna take your shirt off?” Bruce replies on autopilot, still entranced by the heat of Tony’s fingers against his earlobe. Pulling his hand away, Tony raises his eyebrows at Bruce before shrugging and starting to undo his tie.

“You keep talking like that,” Tony says, looping the tie off his head and letting the silky fabric fall over Bruce’s check, “And I’ll end up gagging you.”

“With what?”

Tony slides his jacket off, tossing it off the bed. “Well that depends strictly on how good at cock-sucking you are.”

“I think I could manage.”

“Dunno if managing is good enough, Babblebruce,” Tony says, undoing the uppermost button of his undershirt. Bruce watches as Tony’s chest bares above him. There are varying incision marks over his heart. His latest surgery mustn't have gone through the femoral like his older ones had. Still, Bruce wants to feel them, pinpoint the exact brand of scalpel used to make them, but his arms are locked at his sides at the moment, allowing him to see but not touch in a way that drives Bruce every type of crazy.

Once Tony’s shirt is all the way off, Tony chucks it across the room and scoots himself back into place on Bruce’s chest.

“My shirt’s off,” he says. “Now what do you want to do?”

It’s power play, Bruce thinks. Running through every variable in his head—rich, poor, confident, anxious, top, bottom, hot, ugly—Bruce realizes that this is a balance of opposites and that he is more than happy to let Tony take control. Not having to worry about fucking it up at every turn like Bruce had to with Betty sounds numbingly erotic.

Back in real life, Tony’s fingers, calloused and long with pristine nails, work over the button of his trousers. Bruce’s mouth dries up. When Tony’s pants are undone, Tony drops the band of his underwear just below his balls, letting his cock fall out. He isn’t hard. Yet.

Bruce motions with his head for Tony to scoot closer. When Tony does so, the head of his cock brushes against Bruce’s chin. Bruce swallows the saliva in his throat. Taking a breath in, Bruce crams his neck down, and wraps his lips over his teeth and his mouth over Tony’s cock.

Tony has mentioned to Bruce before, while on a tangent about a prior lay, that he likes his blowjobs slow and teasing. Bruce considers this notion. On one hand, there’s pleasing Tony. On the other hand, however, there’s gagging on Tony Stark’s dick and feeling his precum drizzle down Bruce's throat. Bruce’s cock twitches. Fuck taking it slow.

Bruce works Tony over, sliding his lubricated lips over every inch of his cock, pausing occasionally to suck the precum from the tip. It’s hotter (and a couple inches smaller, if Bruce was being honest) than Bruce ever imagined. He can feel Tony stiffen in his mouth, hear the bedframe creak when Tony leans his forearms against it for support. After a few minutes, Tony sits back up, dropping his hands down to grab onto Bruce’s hair. The first tug is gentle, testing, and after Bruce rolls his eyes at Tony’s lame attempt, Tony yanks his hair forward, forcing his dick into Bruce’s throat and Bruce into a fairyland of pleasure.

Bruce feels every strand of his hair tingling against his scalp. The sensation is pointed like acupressure needles decompressing his swelling skull. Tony has the tightness down to a science, tugging hard enough to prickle but light enough to not hurt. Eventually, Bruce lets his neck relax and allows Tony to do all of the work, pulling Bruce head on and off of him until Bruce is certain Tony’s cock isn’t getting any bigger. At that point, Bruce squirms his arms against Tony’s knees to say stop. Tony catches the hint and pulls out, moving down Bruce’s figure until their hips are against each other. As Tony lifts his other arm from the bedframe, Bruce grabs it, leaving Tony confused for a second before Bruce twines their fingers together with a sheepish smile. The way Tony Stark’s, of all people’s, face heats up at the touch makes Bruce’s chest bubble.

They stay like that, looking at each other and holding hands, for a few minutes before Bruce clears his throat and breaks their eye-contact.

“So,” Bruce starts with a cough. For how much dick has just been in his mouth, Bruce is proud of how collected he sounds. “Penetration?”

Tony snorts. “Quite the romantic, eh?”

“Sorry, but you kind of fucked all the romantic out of my throat with the whole hair-pulling, dick-in-my-mouth thing. Which was super hot, by the way.”

“Mhh,” Tony says and leans down towards Bruce’s chest, keeping their hands linked together. One benefit of their old position, Bruce thinks, was that Tony didn’t have to see Bruce’s chubby, broken body. Like this, however, with Tony’s fingertips ghosting over his waist and his teeth dragging against Bruce’s collarbone, there’s no escape. He wants to tell Tony, as Tony’s mouth lowers to bite down his chest, to stop, to get off now because Bruce is hairy and pudgy below his neck, because his stomach sags into exactly three rolls when he sits upright, and because even size large pants leave him with a lump of fat sinking over the waistline.

Before he can speak his mind, however, the fingers from Tony’s free hand rub over his lips, edging their way inside and under Bruce’s tongue. Bruce tries to forget his discomfort to the sensation of sucking down one, two, three fingers, and to lubing them up so Tony can hopefully turn him over and fuck his ass without having to look at his stomach too closely.

Once Tony’s decided he’s had enough of mouthing at Bruce’s chest and fingering his throat, he pulls his fingers out of Bruce’s mouth and moves back between Bruce’s legs, unlacing his other hand from Bruce's fingers. Bruce watches as Tony bends over the edge of the bed, effectively reminding Bruce to top the hell out of him if he ever gets the chance, and pulls his wallet from his jacket pocket.

“Don’t the condoms get fucked up if you keep them in there for too long?” Bruce says.

Tony scoffs, pulling a golden packet out of the wallet’s divider. “I put this in here last week, Bruce. Don’t think the condom fairy had time to poke holes in it yet.”

“Well, excuse me. Didn’t know you were the expert on contraceptive nymphs.”

There’s a pause.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tony then says, voice a few notes deeper. “Put your legs apart.”

It’s not a particularly unexpected statement, but Bruce bristles from it anyhow. After letting the words seep in, Bruce nods, shifting his head onto the pillow for comfort and hooking his legs around Tony’s waist. He hates the position they’re in, Tony being able to see every bit of him, but not more than he would hate not getting Tony’s dick in him right then.

Meanwhile, Tony slip the last of his trousers and underwear off and pulls the condom over his fingers. Bruce is about to tell him that’s not where condoms are supposed to go before he realizes what Tony is planning. It’s a nice sentiment on Tony’s part, but Tony clearly does not understand that Bruce’s cock is miles too hard for foreplay.

“Just get in me,” Bruce says. “Seriously. I play with myself regularly enough, and it’s not like you’re some eight-inch behemoth.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Bruce.” Tony sounds halfway between concerned and annoyed.

“Yeah, and I’m not one of your virginal Mary Sues whose never had something in her ass before.” Adding that he has made creative use of hairbrush handles, marker caps, and any other phallic object he can fit a latex glove over would be slight overkill, Bruce figures. Instead, he goes for a more classic defense: “Besides, I just got out of the shower. A long shower. Significantly long.”

Tony cocks an eyebrow before shaking his head. “C’mon. You’re supposed to be a pushover that lets me do anything I want. Can’t you just do your job?” Tony may be complaining, but Bruce can see him slip the condom from his fingers onto his cock.

“If this is a job, then I get medical benefits, which currently include your dick up me. Don’t want to be sued for malpractice, now do you?”

Tony edges forward. “Suppose not.”

“Well then. Guess you’ll have to—” Bruce’s sentence is blocked off by Tony’s hand covering his lips and his middle finger slipping into his mouth.

“Shut up, Bruce.”

Bruce shutters and nods his head. The fingers Bruce had lubed earlier with his mouth rub over his ass as an additional drool of saliva pools onto him. Closing his eyes, Bruce feels goosebumps crawl up and down his back. He wants Tony inside of him. Now.

“Line me up,” Tony whispers into his ear. Trembling, Bruce raises one of his hands from its dead state on the bed and reaches for Tony’s cock. He gives it a firm squeeze before aligning it with his entrance. Then Bruce pulls his hand back and waits.

It’s obvious when Tony starts pushing. Bruce can feel every part of his lower body trying to relax in accommodation of the very-welcomed dick pushing into him. After Tony’s head stretches past his entrance, the rest slides in easily, making Bruce’s thighs and calves tighten against Tony’s back.

“Oh my fucking god,” Bruce muffles through Tony’s hand, eliciting a smirk and slight grind from the latter.

“This okay? Good? You can nod, you know.”

Bruce responds instead by curling his tongue around Tony’s middle finger and sucking in. With a hum of acknowledgement, Tony readjusts himself one last time before starting to move his hips out and in. The rhythm is slow and comfortable, which Bruce is thankful for because if Tony went too fast, Bruce would cum in under a minute.

Once in at a solid pace, Tony starts kissing along the side of Bruce’s neck, over the skin behind his ear, and just above the leftmost part of his temple. Their chests are touching, warm, sweaty, bruised skins with a matrix of heat between them. Bruce latches his arms around Tony’s back, holding on as Tony gets more confident in his thrusts. As he speeds up, Bruce starts rocking his ass back, meeting every push with a pull and a groan. Tony is overall quiet, but the timbre of his breaths, jagged and airy, is enough to tell Bruce that this pleasure isn’t mutually exclusive.

When Tony’s close to coming, he drops his hand from Bruce’s mouth and braces both of his fists over Bruce’s shoulders. Bruce takes this as a clue to start touching his own cock, which is desperate for the attention. Tony then quickens his thrusts, pulling Bruce’s shoulders down with every push. His cock hits a place in Bruce that sends a violent surge of warmth through every fiber of his body from the fingernails to the teeth. He keeps jacking all while Tony fucks him, letting the sensations in his ass make his cock all the more pleased as it spurts out the last of its load. Tony lasts a few minutes longer than Bruce, calling out some expletive Bruce doesn’t really hear before pulling out and ripping off the condom to jerk himself off until he cums into his hand. He wipes his hand on Bruce’s bathrobe. Bruce is still too gone to care.

“Jesus, Bruce,” Tony says, collapsing into the bed-space next him. Bruce, meanwhile, sits up and shrugs the rest of the bathrobe off his shoulders, pushing it to the floor. Once it’s out of sight and out of mind, he lies back down in the bed, crawling under the sheets.

“Jesus fucking wishes he could have that.” Then after a pause: “You staying the night?” he asks. Tony makes a face Bruce can’t read. Then Tony coughs.

“Yeah, um. Of course. Just don’t kick me in your sleep, Blackbelt.”

“You’ve slept with me before,” Bruce says. He can feel the blankets shift over his naked body as Tony lays down with him. “It okay if I, like. You know. My arm around you or something?” he asks, turning to Tony who responds by wrapping his own arm around Bruce’s shoulders and pulling him closer. Bruce angles himself towards Tony’s chest and sprawls his arm and half of his knee over Tony’s body. His head fits perfectly in the curve of Tony’s neck.

“Night, Tony,” he says, squeezing Tony’s chest.

“Night, Bruce.”

They fall asleep together.


	14. Coping Methods III: Final

\--- **Chapter 14: Coping Methods III: Final** \- - - -  - - - -    - -  - -    ------- - - - -  -   -

Tony wakes up at 3:36am with Bruce’s breath tickling his neck and arm locked around Tony’s bare chest. On the floor, the inside of Tony’s jacket pocket glows a bluish-green from the light of his smartphone. Howard, Tony remembers, trying to stretch his arm to the floor without waking Bruce. As his fingers skim the jacket’s sleeve, last night comes back in full force. Flashes of Howard praising Steve intermingle with ones of Bruce moaning into Tony’s neck, hot and disgusting all at once. Tony pulls his jacket closer. Bruce’s lips around his cock; Howard’s lips around a champagne glass. The phone case slips into his fingertips. Kissing, fucking, feeling, hating.

 _Tony. Where are you?  
_ _\- H. Stark_

 _Tony  
_ _\- H. Stark_

 _This is ridiculous. Answer your phone!  
_ _\- H. Stark_

 _U ok man?  
_ _-Steve_

 _You just had to ruin it for everyone.  
_ _\- H. Stark_

 _sorry about ur dad. he wasn’t being fair  
_ _-Steve_

 _One night really is too much from you. I should have expected it. Steve just lost his father, and he still held it together better than you.  
_ _-H. Stark_

There are twenty-three more messages from his father and two more from Steve that Tony deletes without reading. He kisses the top of Bruce’s head instead, letting the strands of hair brush against his lips. Bruce’s torso weighs down Tony’s chest, chafing Tony’s scars and compressing his lungs, but Tony needs something in his arms right now.

And Tony knows what he did to Bruce did was unfair. The one trait he’ll admit to having inherited from Howard is his selfishness, and fucking Bruce to get over his Daddy Issues for a day is the exact type of narcissism that made Pepper never talk to him again. Tony recalls telling Jarvis the difference between Bruce and Pepper is that Tony didn’t want to bone Banner. Breathing out a desperate laugh, Tony lets the back of his head fall flat against the pillow and away from Bruce’s face. He has no idea what he’ll tell Bruce in the morning about three hours from now. ‘I fucked you to get over my father,’ probably won't go over too nicely.

Maybe Bruce will wake up first and leave or, at the very least, give Tony an opportunity to do so. No, Tony is not ditching Bruce—Bruce deserves more than that—but he isn’t going to start dating him either. That’s not an option. They’re only sixteen. Friendship is more important at this age then romance, and the idea of being romantic with a guy makes Tony want to gag. Bruce, however, is probably all for it with the way he was spoiling Betty back when they were together. He had been so big on soppy gestures and cutesy nicknames that Tony had gotten legitimately pissed off whenever Bruce would even mention Betty’s name for a period of time. That Bruce was not his Bruce, the level-headed pragmatist to Tony’s opportunist. That Bruce was an obnoxious idiot who wouldn’t give Tony the time of day. It was annoying. It still makes Tony clench his fists slightly.

Back on his phone, a blue light flashes on the screen with another message from Howard.

 _Don’t bother coming home.  
_ _\- H. Stark_

Then, after a few more seconds:

 _Are you safe?  
_ _\- H. Stark_

It’s a low trick to play, feigning concern to weasel a response out of him. Howard probably spent the entire night out with the Rogers and was so giddy he couldn’t sleep until 4:14am. Tony wants to wake up Bruce just to complain about it. Waking up Bruce, however, encompasses another ship of problems Tony is not going to be sailing for the next few hours, at least. He still has to think of something to say to Bruce in the morning that isn't shit.

Like a lightbulb, Tony realizes that he might not have to. In California, it’s only 1:14am. Rhodney might still be awake.

 _i peppered my friend. Help  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

 _Try adding salt.  
_ _\- Rhodney_

 _cute. this is serious, though. i don’t know what to do  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

 _Have you considered not sticking your dick in all of your friends? That’s what ‘peppering’ means, right?  
_ _\- Rhodney_

 _i never put it in you, buddy  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

Rhodey’s eye-roll is almost visible in his reply.

 _*Female friends, then, Tony. But really, you should just be honest with her.  
_ _\- Rhodney_

 _i know. after everything w/ pepper ive been making my intentions clear w/ every girl i meet, but i didn’t with her and she likes me. romantically. that’s probably why i went to her; knew she wouldnt say no  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

 _You are a clinical scumbag with women. At least it’s not new information… Still, tell her the truth. All of it. Don’t lie, don’t make excuses. If you lose her as a friend, that’s on you.  
_ _\- Rhodney_

 _we had a falling out last monthish b/c she kissed me and i just coudlnt but before that we were best friends. we still are, i just didnt know how to deal with her liking me when i could never feel the same back and fuck rhodney I cant handle this. she means so fucking much to me  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

 _Never? That’s rather strong. As long as she has two breasts and a heartbeat, you could always fall for her.  
_ _\- Rhodney_

 _trust me. it’s a 0% chance. still I dont want to lose her, and i know i have to be honest but is there anyway I can make it less shitty on her?  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

 _Just be fair. Apologize and give her space if she needs it. My GF is like that when we get into the nastier fights. It works out better if you drop all the pretext and don’t try to minimize things.  
_ _\- Rhodney_

_…sigh, i know you’re right. ill text you in the morning. thank you!_

_|| Tony <3-  
_ _\- Rhodney_

After clicking out of the conversation with Rhodney, Tony’s eye catches on the 43 unread text messages still lingering in the “BabbleBruce” folder of Tony’s phone. Tony has tried to read them a hundred times, but could never bring himself to it. Inside, he’s hoping that they’re all Bruce saying what a mistake it was and that he only did it because he was trying to get over Betty. If nothing else, reading them will give him some ideas on how to talk to Bruce in the morning. Tony clicks open the conversation.

The messages are all punctuated immaculately. Bruce wobbles everywhere from apologizing to making puns and doesn't get angry or fault Tony once. There’s something about text number 26, _“You’re my best friend, sometimes my only friend, and I don’t want to lose that,”_ that is a dead-ringer for what Tony had said to Pepper just before she waltzed out of his life indefinitely. A distinct and familiar urge to vomit festers in Tony’s stomach.

The final message, sent three days ago, is short and simple:

 _You text me.  
_ _\- Bruce_

Tony knows instantly what it means. It’s the first message where Bruce asks anything from him other than forgiveness and is likely the last one Bruce would have ever sent had Tony never replied to it. That message gives Tony full control over what happens next, and Tony realizes with a sinking feeling in his throat that Bruce must think this is his response. Bruce asks him to make a move, and Tony shows up at his doorstep dressed for the Gods and fucks him. Jesus, what the fuck else could Bruce think? In Bruce’s mind, Tony has picked him. In Tony’s mind, Tony is a manipulative idiot who used his best friend for sex. Again. Tony has to tell him. It is going to ruin everything, but Tony has to. Bruce deserves that much, at least.

Morning is signified by Bruce’s mom banging on the living room door saying she has lost her keys. Tony’s eyes open first, focusing on the Bruce below him, moaning into his chest.

“She always forgets her keys,” Bruce mumbles, lips brushing against Tony’s heart just above one of the scars. Tony just nods. He feels paralyzed. _You have to tell him_ screams through his mind, getting painfully loud when Bruce wills himself out of bed and kisses Tony’s cheek. “Don’t tell her you shoved your dick in me last night, okay?”

“I’ll try,” Tony manages back. He wonders if Bruce thinks he sounds so choked up because he’s tired.

The sounds of Bruce dressing, doors creaking, and keys jingling pound in Tony’s eardrums. _Tell him_. _You have to tell him_. He hears Bruce’s mom crack some joke that makes Bruce laugh before she collapses onto the couch to Bruce chiding, “You really need to stop the double shifts. I have a rich friend now, you know.”

For as awful as Tony feels, hearing Bruce call him his friend makes his whole body relax in relief before tightening in guilt. When Bruce steps back in, shaking his head, Tony sits upright.

“I do not know how my mom even got here. Her eyes were not open, despite what she’d convinced herself. I think I’m going to have to start working part-time somewhere. Mom always says my job is school, but she deserves a break.”

Bruce steps over, gray sweatpants and a stained white t-shirt, and sits on the bed over Tony’s legs.

“I can help, you know,” Tony says too quickly. “With the money. Pay her properly for her volunteer work, at least. Dad’s been looking for more charities to rub his balls over.”

“Maybe.” Bruce’s hands trail up Tony’s waist as he leans down and kisses Tony’s hips. How this is the first time Bruce ‘my showers don’t work and you’re a billionaire, but I’m still paying for my own movie ticket’ Banner has agreed to really let Tony help him financially does not go over Tony’s head. “But right now, I really want to suck you off,” Bruce finishes.

Tony bites his lip.

“You know Bruce—”

“Shut up, Stark. I want to.”

Not that. Bruce wraps his mouth around Tony’s cock. It’s a good feeling physically, even if on the inside Tony hasn’t yet kicked the need to puke. He’s not going to cum when he’s this nervous, and he’s not even hard, but Bruce doesn’t seem to mind if the way his fingers are sliding up and down Tony’s legs is any indicator. One positive about this situation, beyond the whole blow job thing, is that it gives Tony a couple more minutes to think before Bruce has an open mouth to make words with.

After a few minutes of fruitless sucking, Bruce pulls off, wiping a drop of saliva off his lip.

“Aren’t you supposed to be better at this?” he teases, smiling. “With how much you'd bragged about about your lays, I thought you could go for three rounds of fucking and still have two left over for emergencies.”

“We should talk,” Tony blurts out. His eyes are wide and he’s having trouble breathing. Raising his head and pursing his lips together, Bruce nods, climbing over to the empty side of the bed as Tony rests his head against the bedframe.

“Yeah, we should.”

“I, um. Last night.” _Tell him_. “I think it goes without saying that—”

“We probably shouldn’t date,” Bruce finishes. Tony’s head jerks to him. Rubbing his neck, Bruce averts his eyes towards the window, “I mean, if you want to, we can, but we’re sixteen, and I’d rather be your best friend when you’re forty than that nobody guy you screwed when you were a sophomore. The sex thing, though, that should stay. Absolutely. If you want to.” Bruce is rambling. He rambles when he’s nervous. If Tony could move his frozen mouth, he would say something to make him stop. “But, dating’s fine. I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t, I mean, when I asked you to text me, I just wanted to know how you felt about everything. You didn’t talk to me at all, and I imagined every reason under the sea as for why, most of which were that you were disgusted by it, but it makes sense if you were just having issues because of... gender or something? Maybe that’s not it. I don’t know; I've never had a major issue with it, though it’s not something I publicize. I mean, either way is fine with me, but, just being pragmatic, we should probably avoid the whole ‘lunchtime special’ relationship ordeal, if you want maybe?”

“I fucked you because I was pissed at my father.”

Bruce blinks.

“He took Steve and his mom out to dinner and forced me along, and the whole time he was singing Steve’s praises. I had to get out of there, your apartment was nearby, and I needed the ego boost.”

There’s a silence between them. Tony alternates between looking at Bruce, trying to read his expression, and staring at the sullied bed sheets.

“Don’t you, uh,” Bruce eventually begins. His voice is shaking. “Call him Howard? Your dad? You always call him Howard around me. Howard. Not dad.”

Bruce is repeating things just like he had after he’d kissed him. Tony looks over.

“I led you on and played along with it this morning because I felt too guilty to tell you,” he continues. Bruce shakes his head.

“Is it because of him and Steve? Like, a claiming thing. Male dominance. Biologically, if he’s Howard to you and Steve, it is a level playing field, but Steve can never be his son. That’s why you called him your dad. Father. Whatever.”

Tony puts his hands on Bruce’s shoulders.

“Did you hear me?” Tony says. “The part where I used you because I knew you wouldn’t say no?”

Bruce nods. His voice is high-pitched when he replies, “I heard that part, too, in addition, also.” Repeating things. “But, um, it’s. You know. I just feel really stupid at the moment, going on about if you wanted to date me thirty seconds ago.”

The fact that Bruce’s anger isn’t directed towards Tony at all makes Tony choke.

“I mean, you’re probably not straight, anyhow. There was a significant lack of vagina last night, unless I was being delusional about that too.”

Tony bites down the urge to say something back to the ‘not straight’ comment.

“You’re not delusional, Bruce.”

Bruce chews at his index finger. “Yeah. Okay, that’s nice. I just--” he laughs. It sounds almost maniacal. “I just really thought, you know, when you showed up, and the tux should have given it away; I knew something was up, but, um. I probably shouldn’t have agreed to it since you were so obviously disturbed, and it makes more sense hearing it now.”

“Your eyes are watering.”

“Oh, are they? That’s not good. Even more embarrassing, sorry.”

Tony reaches his thumb out and wipes one of the droplets away.

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers. He feels guilt tugging at his skin, pulling like it’s trying to tear out his bones. He can only imagine what Bruce feels like.

“I’m not, I mean, Tony, for fuck’s sake. I’m not someone you can just do that to.”

Anger, finally. If Bruce didn’t defend himself, Tony wouldn’t have been able to take it.

“I know.”

“Even if I kissed you.”

“I know.”

“Actually, especially when I kissed you. And the not talking to me? For almost a month? Really?”

“I should have said something.”

“No, you didn’t need to. I knew it’d take a while before you’d be able to talk to me again. It’s just—if you’re going to fuck with me like I’m one of the girls you one-night-stand, at least have the decency to send me a heads up the night before. Or month before.”

“I didn’t know I’d be doing this.” His head flashes to a fight between him and Pepper, and Tony clears his throat. Don’t make excuses. “Not, not that that’s a reason for it. At all. I’m wrong, obviously. I’m sorry.” If he’d acted like this with Pepper, maybe she would still talk to him, Tony thinks.

Bruce closes his eyes and inhales. Tony’s hands fall to the inside of his elbows. “Do you even like men?”

“No.” It’s an instant reply. Tony is being honest.

“Well, you shoved your dick in one, so excuse me for being a little put off!” Bruce snaps. Tony winces.

“I don’t. It’s not wired in me.”

“It’s wired in me. Maybe not the only wire in me, but it’s definitely wired in me, so while you were imagining I was some big-titted blonde, I was really enjoying having another guy over me. In me, for that matter. You know, because you fucked me, another guy, less than twelve hours ago. And came from it.”

“I wasn’t pretending you were someone else.”

“Right, because if it was someone else you wouldn’t have done it, yeah? Because you knew I wouldn’t say no? Jesus Tony, do you think I’m that pathetic? Clearly I am; I fucking fell for it.”

“You knew from the start, from the first time we met, that I don’t play nicely with others. It’s not fair to just change your mind on liking me when I haven’t even—” Pepper’s voice echoes in his mind: _“You have no right to be acting defensive right now!”_ “Shit. Bruce, I know that’s terrible. I’m terrible.”

“No. No, see you don’t get to say that. You don’t actually think you’re terrible. You have no idea what it is like to actually hate yourself, and that is fantastic for you. But for us people who do know, who prefer to keep our shirts on during sex because our bodies make us sick to our veins, who wish when we go to sleep half the time we just won't wake up, the people around us are the only thing that can lift us up.” Bruce closes his eyes and arches his head back, making a strangled noise. “If you’re not into guys, why’d we fuck missionary, even? Did you just not notice my cock against your stomach? I’m seven inches, pretty hard to miss.”

“You’ve measured your dick?”

“Betty did it, fuck,” Bruce scratches under his neck, digging his fingers under his collarbone uncomfortably deep.

“That has to hurt.”

“Not enough.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I wish I could rip my collarbone out.” Bruce relaxes his hand, removing it from his neck and ruffling it through his hair. “I wish everything in my head would just shut up for ten seconds.”

“Should I go?”

Bruce’s hand tightens around his hair, yanking at the strands before he scoffs and lets go. “Fuck, I can’t even do that anymore without thinking about you. You’re a really bad person.” It’s a lame insult, but Tony feels every ounce of its weight from the strangled tone of Bruce’s voice. “Just go or whatever.”

Tony feels a droplets of water drip down his cheek. He wipes it off and grabs his suit from off the floor.

“I will. Sorry.”

He dresses. Bruce remains seated on the bed, dead silent. Once fully clothed, Tony nods in Bruce’s direction.

“I’m going now.”

At least they’ve both stopped crying. Bruce doesn’t say anything or move until Tony is opening the door to the bedroom.

“Tony,” Bruce says.

He glances back. “Yes?”

Bruce stands up and walks over towards him until they’re facing each other. Tony thinks Bruce is going to punch him, but instead Bruce presses his thumb into Tony’s neck and leans forward until their lips are touching. When Bruce breathes, Tony can feel the it against his mouth.

“Nice heart-rate,” Bruce says, pulling back a centimeter to meet Tony’s wide eyes with his own. “Pupil dilation. Hip-angle.” He moves his hand from Tony’s neck to Tony’s chest and pushes him back lightly. “Don’t text me,” he finishes, leaving Tony transfixed.

“I, um. I won’t.”

“Good.”

And Bruce, perfectly calm, closes the door in front of him. It takes Tony a solid four minutes before he is even able to breathe again. Once he can, he moves through Bruce’s living room and out his door, shaky fingers sending a text to the only person who would possibly give him a place to stay right now. After the message is sent, Tony waits on the lowest stair leading to Bruce’s floor for the reply, which comes twenty minutes later.

 _your dad kicked u out? and yeah of course you can stay the night, im already having thor n loki come over for a captin america marathon! :)plus my mom was so stressed b/c she thought you and howard were mad at us or something,she’ll be glad to see us hanging out. just bring extra popcorn, thor always eats all of mine!  
_ _\- Steve_

God, Tony hates his life.


	15. Boys Only

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Shout-outs to In_Good_Faith and Snow. Nothing is a greater compliment to a writer than to know that people are digging deeper into your stories and characters. Also, welcome to Electrolyte Mind, Ruth & Ava Lu, glad to have you newcomers aboard!

**\---Chapter 15: Boys Only- - - -  - - - -    - -  - -    ------- - - - -  -   -**

Steve’s mom picks Tony up thirty minutes later. She looks tired, wrinkles and eye-bags far away from the animated faux-debutante she had been with Howard the other night. Still, she greets Tony with an upbeat ‘Hello!’ that is miles too friendly for how Tony deserves to be treated at the moment.

“Thanks for picking me up,” he says, sliding into the passenger seat.

“No problem, Tony. Steve was really excited to have you over.”

“Right.” Mentioning to Mrs. Rogers that Steve probably is only excited because he still feels guilty about causing Tony’s heart breakdown or giving him a black eye doesn’t feel like something Tony should be doing, so he lets the conversation drop. Honestly, he’s still thinking about Bruce. A saturation of bone-numbing guilt and confusion overtakes him for the majority of the car ride. The way Bruce had said goodbye to him. That smile, that kiss. The impossible, incongruous confidence. Bruce is working an angle. Tony just needs to find its complement.

Mrs. Rogers jerks Tony out of his thoughts when she pulls into the most cookie-cutter home Tony has ever seen. There is a bleach-white picket fence around the two-story, off-blue house’s perimeter, and multi-colored petunias adorn the gardens to the left and right of the pathway. Outback, barks from what Tony can only assume is a golden retriever crack through the quiet. Tony mutedly hopes they’ll find a dead body under the floorboards or something malevolent to balance out the nauseating picturesqueness of it all.

Inside the house, unfortunately, the only bodies are Steve’s, Loki’s, and Thor’s. They’re bunched on the living room’s couch, talking over the Marvel movie playing on the flat screen until Tony clears his throat, attracting their attention.

“Bro Stark!” Thor declares, standing up from the couch and running over to Tony to give him a meaty hug. Tony’s eyebrows quirk.

“When did Thor start saying ‘Bro’?”

“It’s a long story,” Loki replies. “Also from a long time ago. Where’ve you been?”

Thor releases the embrace. “Tony and I have spoken, even hung out as of recent, but I was usually—” Thor pauses. “Not in my correct state of mine. I was in Asgard, if you catch my current.”

“Catch my drift,” Loki corrects, “And what you mean is that you two were shit-faced.”

Thor nods, “Essentially. It is hard for me to talk normally with copious amounts of alcohol in my system.”

Humming in agreement, Tony saunters over to the couch and plops down between Thor and Steve. On the screen, Stephen Togers, thin and lanky, is getting power-roofied by Anthony Marks’ dad. Tony has always hated this part of the movie. It’s brawn over brain enforced in triplicate; the lanky intellectual nobody becomes the buff warhead hero. Tony’s never believed a word of it.

“See now, there’s the problem,” Tony says aloud. “The strong guys fight the wars, but it’s the smart ones that end them. Togers should have just been a strategist, work in hypotheticals. It’d be far more productive and have much less frostbite potential.”

Loki scoffs, “That movie exists already, and it’s called _Iron Man_.”

Tony tosses a popcorn kennel at Loki’s cheek. “Anthony Marks had the right idea. Him and Tanner.”

“Says the class valedictorian, sure,” Steve teases. “You hate anyone with bigger muscles than you.”

It hits a nerve Tony doesn’t care to admit he has. Steve’s punches always hurt. Later, once the first movie is over and _The Mighty Lhor_ is halfway through, Loki says it’s time to really start the party and pulls a zip-lock bag of three blunts out from his backpack under the couch. Tony’s face lights up.

“Now that’s my kind of popcorn,” Tony says. “You have that all day in school?”

Loki smirks. “Not the whole day. Romanoff passed it on to me during lunch.” He fiddles with the bag between his fingers, unzipping and zipping it again. Tony’s eyebrow quirks.

“Natasha sold you them? She doesn’t smoke or deal last I checked. That, and she hates you.”

“Well, she doesn’t hate Steve or Thor, and I told her everyone would be taking a drag, so I doubt it’s poisoned.”

Steve stands up suddenly, his hands in the air. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait. When did I agree to this? I did not agree to this. No drugs, no alcohol. Throw it out outside or find another house, Loki. You know I don’t do that stuff. Hell, you know I don’t like being around people who do that stuff.” His tone is halfway kidding, but it’s clear that he doesn’t want the festivities near him for the time being.

Rolling his eyes, Loki lobs his knapsack over his shoulders. “Out of respect for our lovely hostess,” he starts, “I will dispose of the paraphernalia outside. However, there is quite a bit of it.” Loki eyes Thor and Tony. “I may need some assistance.”

“I am going to end you, Loki,” Steve says. Putting a hand on Roger’s shoulder, Tony gets up with a cheeky grin.

“Come on now, Steven. Don’t be such a prude. I’ll make sure personally that Loki doesn’t have a gram of that stuff left by the time we come back in, okay?”

“Not okay! Who said this was okay? You guys are unbearable; I should have just invited Natasha and Clint.”

Tony blows him a kiss, following a chuckling Loki out the back door, Thor close behind. He can hear Steve groaning. Once outside on the porch’s steps, Loki blows a ring of marijuana smoke into Thor’s face before passing the lit bowl to Tony. Tony reaches up to inhale and then pauses.

“You know, Rogers’ is gonna need some sober company, and Thor won’t be nearly as funny high if I’m not fully cognizant,” he says, handing the bowl to Thor. Loki and Thor call him a lightweight as he heads back inside the house, flipping off the Brothers Karamazov. Being honest, Tony didn’t want to get too buzzed or too drunk to forget that texting Bruce is off limits. Marijuana’s always made Tony more easygoing; High Tony would probably think that Bruce just needed a bit of warming up for them to get along again. Sober Tony, however, isn’t so optimistic. If Bruce ever does decides to forgive him, it will take Tony a lot more than sending fifty apology texts one night while he’s drunk and high. Tony has to be patient. (Tony hates being patient.)

Inside Rogers’ house, Tony spots Steve still glued to the couch. The TV screen has gone black and the pillow Steve is holding to his chest looks like it’s going to explode if Steve grips it any tighter. Coming to a stop at the side of the couch, Tony taps the back of Roger’s shoulder.

“You okay, Stars ‘n Stripes?”

Steve lifts his head from the pillow, crease marks from its seams engraving red lines across his cheeks.

“I’m fine, Tony. It’s just—” Steve bites his upper lip and pauses. “It’s easier with Thor and Loki and even you here to distract me. Otherwise, I can’t think about anything else.” The ‘else’ is implicit. “I just get in these moods.”

“You could have come with us. We wouldn’t have forced the weed down your throat,” Tony says, leaning down on the armrest of the couch. Steve shakes his head.

“I don’t want to be around that. I’m actually pretty pissed that Natasha would give him that crap for tonight. She knows I don’t touch drugs.”

“Maybe she thinks it will help you lighten up.”

“I don’t want to have to smoke pot to not feel like I’m dead all the time, Tony!” Steve yells. “I mean, fuck, if I start now, I’m not going to be able to stop. I know I won’t. Not if it makes me feel any better about this.”

Cans of beer with Rhodney and making sure Howard won’t be home for the next hour flash through Tony’s mind. Tony had smoked his first bowl in seventh grade. He’d had his first beer in fifth, only two sips to make him utterly wasted. It was just harmless fun, and Tony could still function without his alcohol fixes every Friday night. Before the drugs and alcohol, it was sleeping. After mom died, Tony would sleep for hours on end, getting up only for meals and school. Sleep, beer, pot, sex later once he started eighth grade. Pepper. For a period of time, Bruce was his coping method. Then Tony had combined him with sex, two systems in one with double the relief and double the side effects.

Steve wasn’t like Tony, however. Steve was better, stronger, more muscular. More of a man.

“You’re not going to go on a bender, Steve,” Tony says. “You have more control than that.”

“Right now, I’m not too sure about that.”

Tony is really shit at dealing with other people’s feelings. He glances at the ceiling aimlessly, hoping something not-terrible to say will be scrawled in the eggshell-white paint chips. While he’s searching, he hears Rogers exhale.

“But thank you for coming in. I know it probably wasn’t for me, but I appreciate it.”

“You’re so gay, Rogers.” And that’s coming from someone who fucked a man last night. A twinge of guilty pangs surges through Tony’s stomach. He swallows it down with a smirk as Steve laughs.

“Oh shut up. You and Bruce were practically dating before you two stopped talking to each other.”

The bemusement on Tony’s face falls dead. “How did you know Bruce and I weren’t talking?”

Steve shakes his head. “I dunno, Tony, because I’m not an idiot? Besides, last time I asked you about him, you’d tensed up like I’d threatened to kill you or something. It was obvious something was wrong.”

“Well, it’s fixed now,” Tony says. “So you can stop worrying.”

“Oddly enough, Bruce wouldn’t tell me what was up either when I asked him.”

Any sympathy Tony might have been feeling for Steve is outweighed by an unflaggable urge to punch him in the jaw.

“Nothing to tell,” Tony replies. “We were never that close; now we’re less close.”

“Right.”

“I am right. Glad to hear you admit it for once, Rogers.”

Tony elbows Steve in the arm, who continues, unaffected. “Though, I couldn’t imagine it was something Bruce did. The guy is like a teddy bear. Me and Peggy double dated with him and Betty one time, and he was so stressed over making sure everyone had a good time, I don’t think he even enjoyed himself, and he’s not a quarter as close to us as he was to you.”

“Are you implying that it’s my fault? What am I asking for? Of course you are.” Standing up, Tony faces away from Steve and cracks his wrists with his palms. “Everything is my fault, consistently,” he scoffs. “Clearly, I’ve never had anything bad happen to me my entire life and am just a leech that sucks the joy out of people through their sex organs until nothing’s left but misery and despondency.”

Steve pauses. “Wait, did you and Bruce had sex?”

Tony pauses a beat. Then he rolls his eyes. “God, no. Get your mind out of the gay pornos your mom doesn’t know you’re watching.”

“I don’t watch gay porn, Tony,” Steve says with a laugh. Tony shrugs.

“Sounds like something someone who watches gay porn would say.”

“It also sounds like something someone who doesn’t watch gay porn would say.”

They stare at each other for a second before breaking out in a fit of giggles. Just then, the back door opens, and Loki and Thor step through, confused. Loki waves his hand over the scene in front of him as if testing if his eyes were tricking him or not.

“Are you two getting along?” Loki drawls, sauntering over to the couch. “That’s fucking hilarious.”

Thor, meanwhile, lingers back by the doorway, fixated on a spider climbing up a tiny yellow web in the corner of the kitchen.

“Is he okay?” Steve asks, gesturing to Thor.

“He’s fine,” Loki slurs. “I did, now I did, I did most of the alcoholic beverages and he, well, Thor is a vegetarian at heart. He loves his greens.” The joke seems to crack Loki up as he erupts into a fit of laughter, prompting Steve to inch away from him towards Tony’s side of the couch.

“Breaching the ‘no-homo’ zone, Stars ‘n Stripes,” Tony says, leaning away.

“All of it,” Loki declares, “All of the homosexuality, Brothers. I think we should just orgy, just do it, have it be done. On our homestead, it is, essentially important. I mean, me and Thor could—”

“Oh my god,” Tony says with an ecstatic grin. “When Loki gets drunk, he talks like Thor sober.”

Steve’s mouth drops. “Jesus, you’re right. That’s hilarious.”

“Mhmm.”

“Brother!” Loki calls towards the kitchen. “We’re orgying. You should come, now and later.”

“We’re not gonna have an orgy, right?” Steve asks Tony. In response, Tony wiggles his eyebrows and puts his hand on the inside of Steve’s thigh, making Steve jump from the couch with red tinting his cheeks. “Don’t just do that you jerk!”

“B-baka!” Tony replies. “It’s not like I wanted you to notice me or anything.”

Steve’s face scrunches. “What’s a baka?”

Bruce would have gotten the joke, Tony thinks, getting up from the couch. He strolls past Rogers back towards the kitchen where Loki and Thor are in a heated discussion.

“People can have threesomes, Thor. They exist,” Loki says, swishing the beer in his freshly-poured solo cup.

“They cannot, Brother. The positions are implausible. Perhaps three people in a bed, making merry with each other in sets of two, but there are simply not enough orifices in the human body to equally satisfy all three at once. At the very least, a system of turns would have to be implemented.”

Huh, Tony thinks. Maybe they are having an orgy.

“Well, what is the guy-to-girl ratio we’re considering?” Loki asks. “Lesbians could just lay in a triangle like some geometric human centipede.”

“Assume there is one penetrating object,” Thor counters. He turns and then digs through the kitchen’s drawers under the microwave. Seconds later, a phallic breadstick and a two-pack of jelly mini-donuts are in his hands. “Observe.”

Thor unwraps the donuts and places them with the breadstick on the counter in front of Loki, who’s starring quizzically at him along with Tony and Steve (who had reluctantly ventured to the kitchen in response to the commotion).

“Is Thor trying to cook?” Steve asks, pointing to the carbohydrates the adopted Odinson is arranging.

Thor sneers. “I am trying to showcase, not sauté.” He moves the two donuts so the smaller one is facing the breadstick’s base and the larger is off to the side. “Possibility one: a singular penetrative act. Cherry is receiving Pita; Sherry is observing.”

“Is the breadstick having sex with the donut? Did he give them names?” Steve whispers to Tony, who nods in solemn confirmation.

“I’m afraid so, Rogers.”

“Possibility two,” Thor continues, rotating the breadstick. “Sherry is receiving Pita; Cherry observes.”

“I am so happy I’m going to be able to remember this tomorrow,” Tony says and reaches into his jacket pocket for his phone. Switching his camera app to video, Tony mounts the device against the toaster and presses record. “Thor’s facebook page is never going to be the same.”

“Possibility three requires Cherry to be pleasuring Sherry whilst Cherry receives Pita. Now, while all parties may be active in this variant, it is clear that only one instance of sex is occurring. Additionally, this position offers limited interest to Sherry, as Pita is free to touch and kiss Cherry, but Sherry is out of his reach. Once again, Sherry is not receiving an equal amount of attention.”

“Is your argument, then, that threesomes cannot exist where everyone is being pleasured equally or that they cannot exist at all?” Loki interrupts.

“The former.”

“Oh, well I can see that. No way at least one of the Crème twins aren’t getting special treatment.”

“My point exactly,” Thor concludes. Sighing, Tony cracks his knuckles and steps up to the blonde-haired Odinson, pushing him to the side.

“Let me show you something about the laws of equilibrium, Odinson,” he says, taking the donuts in hand. “Get me another breadstick, would ya Steve?”

Steve pauses, contemplating the situation’s unyielding absurdity, before resigning to it and snatching another breadstick to hand to Tony who immediately breaks the stick in half.

“Application,” Tony begins, jamming the broken end of the stick into the center of the larger donut, “Of a prosthetic enhancement device to Sherry, along with some rectal lubricant—” he fingers a dollop of cream from the donut’s center and rubs it over its backside “—allows for a threeway penetrative system as demonstrated below.” Positioning the full breadstick at the underside of the larger donut and the broken breadstick at the front of the smaller donut, Tony steps back in satisfaction. “All parties are engaged in a penetrative sex act, and receive equal pleasure. A thrust from Pita transfers through Sherry to Cherry just as a grind from Sherry affects Pita and her underling. Since Sherry doesn’t have sensation in her phallic mechanism, she doesn’t receive any additional pleasure from it, balancing her out with Cherry and Pita, who are both in penetration with only one party. Pita, also, though unable to kiss Sherry, can kiss Cherry who can kiss Sherry and Pita. Thus, everyone is equally pleased.”

All of Thor, Loki, and Steve stare at Tony silently until Tony reaches for the smaller donut and takes a bite out of it. “Huh,” he says finally. “We should have named her ‘Strawberry.’”

None of the observers disagree with him.

\- - - -  - - - -    - -  - -    ------- - - - -  -   -

It’s a weird dream for Bruce. He has sex dreams often enough, but usually they’re nondescript, blank faces fulfilling blank fantasies based on whatever porno he’d read most recently or a blurry him and Tony before they’d stopped talking. This one, however, is alarmingly clear:

He’s eating out Betty’s tits, her purple button-down halfway off her pale shoulders when Tony leans over him and kisses his neck. His palm guides Bruce’s face back to him, lips mouthing at his as Betty pulls Bruce’s jeans over his ass. For some reason, Betty has a strap-on in this dream—in real life, she was a vanilla bottom—which Bruce settles onto as Tony bends down and wraps his lips over Bruce’s cock. The sucking and fucking is unbearable, an influx of stomached-warming good that has Bruce coming into Tony’s mouth and waking up alone and dripping with sweat on his bed sheets.

Well, Bruce is definitely bi, Bruce thinks.

Now all that’s left is to figure out what Tony is.


	16. Yellow Card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N. To quote MayonEgg, "IT'S BACK!". Thanks to all my commenters and kudo'ers; I’ll do my best to keep the updates about every week. SarahTheDragon & Lotticorn, please continue being wonderful and brightening my days. On a personal note, this chapter is in my house, breathing down my neck close-to-home and was a hard write. I hope the realism comes through. It took almost 4000 words to get it across.

**\---Chapter 16: Yellow Card - - - -  - - - -    - -  - -    ------- - - - -  -   -**

Tony has never been nice. Bruce knows that. Still, it doesn’t stop Tony’s words from stinging when they leave his mouth, _“I fucked you because I was pissed at my father,”_ as though it is an explanation, as though it justifies it all. There is a pause where Bruce replays the words on his eyelids, digesting and making sure they won’t change. Maybe Bruce says something during it— _“Don’t you call him Howard?”—_ and maybe Tony replies, but if he does, Bruce doesn’t hear a syllable of it.

Then, it hits him: humiliation, shame, and crunching, twisting anger. There is a loss of control and vulnerability that leaves Bruce shaking and tearing up from undiluted rage. Tony, meanwhile, is being uncharacteristically nice. He feels guilty, thinks the loser in front of him is pathetic. Pities him. He’s probably right, but that doesn’t stop Bruce from wanting to punch him in the jaw.

Tony cries too, at a point. Bruce wants to spit venom, _‘Don’t you know straight boys don’t cry?’_ , but Bruce isn’t mean like Tony so he—Bruce’s thoughts crash-stop.

 _Bruce isn’t mean like Tony_. Bruce isn’t mean. Suddenly, Bruce is back in middle school, fourth grade, pushing a smelly Eric Kripke to the ground and laughing as he falls. Sally Hansen is nicknamed ‘Pig Girl’ because of her fat stomach and perennial pigtails that Bruce likes to pull on while chanting ‘Squeal, squeal, squeal!’ Bruce has a nickname too, ‘Big Bruce’, since he does Martial Arts every Wednesday, though he’s only a yellow belt.

One day, after tripping Pig Girl to the ground, he catches a glimpse of her face, covered in the baseball field’s mucky sand as she yells: ‘Why are you so mean?!’ Three years later, Eric’s sister is part of the popular clique and bullies are out of style. The friends Big Bruce has just because they’d grown up together, friends of convenience and parental connections, stop talking to him, and without people to laugh with him, it’s not much fun pushing others around. There’s an attempt to be nice on his end. It’s an awkward phase of uncomfortable apologies that the recipients don’t believe for a second, even if Bruce is being honest. At least no one is actively mean to Bruce. No one talks to him much at all, really.

Schoolwork becomes a focus with nothing else to occupy his thoughts. At the start of eight grade, he apologizes again to everyone he’d ever been mean to, a long list, and they mostly accept it. Sally Hansen says she just feels sorry for him now. Eric Kripke, the unpopular nerd in his sister’s shadow, has a different reaction.

They become friends, Eric turning into Bruce’s best friend, though Bruce isn’t sure if the sentiment is mutual. One day, he’s over Eric’s house, watching some wrestling match, and feels something in his stomach that he’d only felt when Veronica Mars had worn spaghetti straps to Gym class the month before. Eric asks him something then kisses him. Bruce hasn’t been kissed before. He doesn’t like the feeling and tells Eric so, which is clearly the wrong move to make. After that, Eric doesn’t talk to him anymore either. “ _So you bully the shit out of me, and when I’m finally nice to you, you just shirk me off? You’re so mean; you’ll never change!”_

You’re so mean.

Bruce isn’t mean.

He gets up off the bed, stops Tony from going because Tony is pulling pigtails and being mean, but he’s apologizing. He’s legitimately sorry; Bruce can tell from the intonation. It’s the same one he’d used with Sally and Eric. Second chances are a second breath. Bruce remembers starting freshmen year irrevocably low. One second it was shiny new goals—be nicer to people, make new friends—and then the next he was screaming at some innocent thirteen-year-old in the hall. Big Bruce would never change. That’s why he was going to slit his throat with the pocket knife Eric had given him a few weeks into their friendship. Bruce doesn’t remember what had happened that night, freshmen year, feelings blurring out the details, but he must have had some angel watching over him, because when he’d gone to end his life, the knife was gone, and Bruce couldn’t kill himself without it. He couldn’t.

Back in reality, Bruce kisses Tony again and smiles against his mouth. There’s a science to the way Tony reacts, pupil dilatation and hip-angling that Bruce catalogues in the back of his mind for later use. He lets Tony go, keeping control for himself, _“I’ll text you,”_ and the difference between the two of them is that Bruce actually will because he isn’t mean like Tony was. Was, past tense.

Forgiveness is floating, flooding, fucking. It leaves Bruce high and exhausted, cradling him back to sleep. The kinky, homo-polygamist dream probably means something deeper, but Bruce is feeling too light to analyze them beyond the breasts and blowjobs when he wakes up later that day. His clock reads 4:00pm. The sheets still smell like Tony, and Bruce can’t stop smiling, so he doesn’t even bother trying. It’s going to be a good week. He plans to text Tony next Friday.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -          

It’s going to be a bad week, Tony thinks, stretching up and out of the two-hour sleep he’d gotten on Rogers’ living room couch. Tony still doesn’t have a place to stay for the week, and while Steve’s residual guilt or maybe a good word from Peggy had let Tony get away with a metaphorical one-nighter, he doubts Steve will be up for a more permanent relationship. The only options, then, are to text his dad and beg for forgiveness or to text Bruce and beg for forgiveness. Bruce is out of the question; Tony won’t do anything to jeopardize their friendship more than he already has. As such, Tony lugs himself into the kitchen, where his iPhone is still propped up against the toaster, and calls his dad.

“Tony?” Howard’s stern voice makes Tony wince. “Where are you?”

“I’m at—”

“What?” Howard muffles, covering the receiver of his phone with his palm. “No, Marie, I’m talking to my son. It’s—no, it’s not important. I can do the briefing. Yes, I’ll be right there, just one second.” Tony hears his father exhale. “Look, just go to the house and we’ll discuss this later.”

The phone clicks off before Tony can reply. Tony closes his eyes and steels himself until his arms stop shaking. Once still, he taps opens his messenger and texts a sleeping Steve that Howard's come to pick him up early. It’s a long walk to Stark Mansion from the Rogers’ abode, but everyone in New York walks, and Tony could do with some fresh air. If he compulsively checks Bruce’s conversation with him on his phone for new messages as he goes, well, that’s Tony’s secret.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -          

A week passes. Howard leaves for an emergency business trip before he even gets home to give that ‘discussion’ he had been so keen on earlier. By Thursday night, he’s still not back, and Tony is debating whether to host a party or not. It would have to be one of those trash-your-whole-house parties since Howard deserves it and can’t legally kick Tony out until he’s eighteen anyway. Even if he could, Mr. Stark would never besmirch his company’s precious name by implying its owner’s family was anything less than perfect.

By Friday morning, Tony has decided do it, and by Biology last period, half of the sophomore class is going. Science class has been weird with him sitting next to Bruce, but miraculously, there haven’t been any labs this week, so he and Bruce haven’t actually had to talk to each other yet. Tony wants to invite him. He knows Bruce hates parties, but Tony doesn’t want him to feel intentionally excluded. Still, the gag order Tony has put himself on stays strong and keeps his mouth sealed through the rest of the class.

Later, as he’s rationing out red solo cups and alcohol, his phone buzzes. Tony hopes its Howard announcing he’ll be home tonight so that he can witness Tony’s mayhem first hand. When he checks the message, however, it isn’t Howard. It’s Bruce.

_do you have plans for tonight? mom’s taking me to the movies, and we can’t justify getting the extra large popcorn without a thirdsie  
\- Bruce_

Tony’s reply is instant:

 _what theater?  
_ _|| Tony <3-_

He locks up the labs, deadbolts any experimentation center, and caution-tapes the upper floors to keep the destruction to the lower levels of the house. Tony isn’t going to be at the party, but he’s not cancelling it now that the solo cups have rationed and been pre-placed for beer pong. Shooting Thor a text and figuring Thor can manage the festivities and make sure no one gets set on fire or becomes a republican, Tony heads upstairs to grab a shower and get dressed before meeting Bruce.

The movie starts at 4:55pm, and Tony doesn’t want to be late, but none of his shirts look right. The Calvin Kleins are too dressy; the Marc Jacobs are too casual. Jeans don’t feel appropriate, but slacks aren’t an option either. Maybe khakis and a t-shirt. Bruce’s favorite color is yellow; does Tony have anything yellow? Or maybe black because Tony knows it looks best against his tan skin. By 4:43pm, however, Tony has to decide because Bruce’s mom is outside beeping out the beat to _Call Me Maybe_. He settles on a black tank top, tan khakis, and a yellow livestrong bracelet he hasn’t worn since middle school, and runs a glob of mouse through his hair before heading down with his cell phone and his wallet. Bruce is outside of the car, examining the updated security cameras in the front of the house.

“These models aren’t even out in rich-people hospitals yet. Your dad really did update them,” he says.

“Kind of why you had to put up with me for however-many months.”

Bruce nods and then turns to Tony, glancing him over. “Did you have a date tonight or something? We can reschedule.”

“What? Why would you think I have a date?”

“You’re wearing jewelry.”

Tony squints his eyes and slips his livestrong bracelet around his fingers, stretching it apart and then flicking it so it hits Bruce’s cheek.

“It’s a deadly projectile,” Tony says. “Latest Stark Industry tech.”

“It’s cute,” replies Bruce, bending down to pick it up.

“Do you want it?” The words are automatic, out of Tony’s mouth before his brain can remind him that you can’t buy people to make them not hate you anymore.

“That’s okay,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “Yellow’s not my color.”

“It’s your favorite color. Your headphones are yellow; your phone case is yellow. Hell, even your notebooks use off-yellow paper instead of white.”

Laughing, Bruce tosses the band back to Tony and heads to the car. “Yellow is always on sale. No one ever wants it. But I do like yellow, just on other people. On me it just makes me look translucent.”

“Well, maybe if you got some sun every once in an ever.”

“Shut up, you get paler than I ever do when you binge write Jarvis script.”

Tony follows Bruce to the back seat with a ‘pfft’, getting in beside him. In the review mirror, Ms. Banner looks bright and lively despite the circles under her eyes.

“You two buckled in?” she says, revving the engine. Once the two of them have hummed in affirmation, they start off to the theater a few miles down.

It’s crowded, Friday night throngs of teenagers and college-goers around every corner. Bruce had ordered the tickets through his phone, though, so he and his mom manage to bypass the majority of the congestion while Tony heads for the line.

“What are you doing?” Bruce asks, putting hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Theater’s this way.”

“Buying my ticket? I’m not so rich that I can’t handle a little bit of lineage, Foodstamps.”

Bruce rolls his eyes. “You could probably skip it if you wanted to. But no, I bought your ticket; come on.”

‘With what?’ Tony wants to ask, but the look on his face must give it away because before he can, Bruce is explaining, “I got a part-time job doing tech at the Sears by my house.”

Tony reaches for his wallet. “Well, let me pay you back at least.”

“What? My poor people money not good enough for you uppidy-uppidy fellers?” Bruce says, leading the trio into Theater Nine. “Had to milk ol’ Betsy a lotta times to get these here tickets.”

“I don’t think Sears has cows, Banner,” Tony replies, jabbing into his side. Inside the movie room, it’s packed, but the three of them find a group of empty seats near the middle-left where they plop down, Mrs. Banner closest to the center and Bruce and Tony next to each other.

“Of course they do,” Bruce continues once they’re situated. “The entire backend of their computer systems runs exclusively on milk and hamsters wheels. If Mr. Squeakers ever got tired or Betsy stopped taking handjobs, I would be fired in no time.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Bruce just smiles as his mom shushes the two of them with a whispered, “Movie’s starting.”

The movie is nothing remarkable, another superheroine flick, but Tony likes the main character, Clara Kent, who ends up using her strategies more than her superpowers to defeat Lexi Luther. After the movie’s end, Mrs. Banner is raving, talking sequels and character development and comparing it relentlessly to the comics.

“I didn’t know your mom was such a nerd, Bruce,” Tony says as they step into Mrs. Banner’s car.

Bruce pushes up the rims of his glasses, snorts, and lisps, “Ith’s hereditary, Misther Sthark.”

Tony elbows him in the side, and the two of them laugh all the way home. Once they pull in to Stark Manor, however, the chuckling quickly drops.

“Tony,” Bruce starts slowly. “What did you do?”

The part is raging. Hard. Every spot of the backyard and foyer is inundated with people, some of which are obviously years too old to be high schoolers. Bruce tells his mom to leave him with Tony until they sort out the party ordeal, and she does so eagerly, urging Bruce to ‘get himself out there’, which makes Bruce’s ears tip pink and Tony assure him that he doesn’t have to join the party if he doesn’t want to. However, Bruce insists on helping, and the two of them begin their hunt for Thor, who Tony explains is hosting the gala. After a few minutes of crowded searching, the two of them spot Thor by the pool with some pretty brunette in a red tankini holding his hand. It's not pool weather yet, but Stark Mansion has outdoor heaters, so none of the girls are too covered up, Tony notices. Lucky Thor.

“Brother Banner! Stark! This is Jan, the fair maiden of Cambridge. My date, in layman’s terms.”

“Right. Well, everything seems under control here. I’m turning in for the night, buddy,” Tony says. Bruce taps his shoulder.

“Under control? This is bad, even by your standards, Tony. You have to get everyone out of here. Your dad is going to kill you.”

“Kind of the point.” Tony turns from the poor, heading out to the garden, whose gates had been sealed off from the partygoers. “My dad’s being a dick, so I’m breaking his stuff. I’m really a toddler at heart, you know.” He leads Bruce through the gateway and subsequent foliage to a discrete elevator concealed in a web of lilacs. “Now, do you want your mom to come back and pick you up or do you want sleep on the top floor of Stark Manor?”

“Tony. You need to stop the party.”

“It will stop. Jarvis is preprogrammed to stop dispensing drinks at 2:30am and to shut off all lights and close the pool-top at 3:00am. Once the beer and lighting is gone, the people will either crash or file out. It’s how I clear all my parties, minus the Jarvis automation.”

“Right. Your house’s funeral, I suppose.” Bruce follows him into the elevator and tries not to gawk the glass walls and fifty-seven purple buttons adorning the navigation panel. Tony hits ‘57’, prompting the elevator to start upwards. A cheesy Vivaldi piece plays through the speaker system which Bruce says sounds far too clear for a damned elevator, but Tony replies that Howard has more than enough money to waste.

There’s not many rooms on the top floor. Howard sleeps near the bottom for easier evacuation and keeps Tony restricted to the lower quarters as well. Tony has always considered the top floor to be Howard’s bachelor pad since it’s only two separate bedrooms and an annex. The walls are entirely soundproof and transparent, making every light from the city glow in dead silence. There's not even video cameras in it. Tony isn't supposed to have access. Bruce can’t stop staring out of the massive windows in the walls of the first bedroom.

“This is gorgeous,” he says.

“Wait until you see where you’ll be sleeping.”

The best view of New York City has to include Time Square, and only one angle of the house hits in perfectly. Tony leads Bruce through the annex interconnecting the two rooms into the larger bedroom with billboards and theater marquees glowing out of the window.

Bruce can’t conceal his excitement. “Holy shit. How do you live here?”

“I can pull the curtains if it’ll be too bright for you,” Tony says, sitting down on the California king bed in the room’s center. “The bed is memory foam, by the way. Feels like you’re sleeping on a cloud.”

“We’re high up enough for it,” Bruce comments, putting his glasses to the window-wall. “Why don’t you just live up here? You can see everything.”

“Howard won’t let me; he does his interviews in this room, but I like to come up here and program sometimes or just work on my laptop when he isn’t home. Jarvis likes the view.”

“You programmed Jarvis.”

“I programmed Jarvis to like the view,” Tony corrects. “Therefore, Jarvis likes the view.”

Bruce turns around, shaking his head, and joins Tony on the bed, sitting on the edge behind him. “Oh my god, this mattress.”

“Yep.”

“I could fall asleep.”

“Well don’t,” Tony says, heading over to the massive bookshelf adorning the inner wall of the room. “We have some reading to do.” Bruce watches him quizzically as he reaches for a thick black book with silver accents at eye-level. “Whenever my dad does interviews here, he either has this bookshelf or New York as his backdrop. No one’s caught it yet, but there’s about four hour-long interviews with this gem visible in the shelf.” He tosses the book onto the bed where it lands to the left of Bruce’s thigh.

“ _Fifty Shades of Grey_. Tony. Tony. You didn’t. You literally did not.”

“Oh I did. The one where he discusses the plan for Iraq’s militia weapon funding? The seductive Christian Grey was in lurking in the background, waiting to pounce on Howard’s Inner Goddess.”

“I’ve never actually read this thing.”

“No?” Tony asks, seating down next to him. He reaches over Bruce’s thighs and takes the book, flipping to the first page. Bruce scoots behind him, leaning over his shoulder to follow along as Tony starts on the first paragraph. They read for a half hour in unison prior to Tony flipping the page before Bruce is done.

“Wasn’t done,” Bruce says, reaching around Tony’s sides to grab the book. Tony clasps his hands, stopping him from reaching the pages.

Turning back and facing Bruce the best he can from the angle, Tony jeers, “Read faster then, Valedictorian.” They look at each other. Bruce’s arms are still around Tony, his chest against Tony’s back and his nose to the left of Tony’s neck. Tony arcs away his head, letting go of Bruce’s wrists and flipping back a page. “Just tell me when to turn,” Tony says.

Bruce’s hands retreat from the book and settle at Tony’s sides, ghosting over the fabric of his shirt. He leans in closer until his chin is against Tony’s shoulder and then tilts his head down so his lips are against Tony’s neck.

“When.”

Tony flips the page.

Bruce kisses Tony’s neck.

“When.”

Bruce kisses Tony’s ear.

“When.”

His cheek.

“When.”

Corner of his mouth.

“What are you doing?” Tony suddenly asks, trying to keep a jitter of casual laughter in his voice as he tilts his face away. Bruce wraps his arms under Tony’s shirt and around Tony’s stomach.

“I wanna feel your scars.”

“You could have just asked.”

“I wanna kiss you.”

Tony chokes. “I, uh, think that job at Sears has gone to your head, Brucie-boy. You can’t just. Um.”

Bruce’s hands are over his hipbones, fingertips just under the hemline of his jeans. Then there’s Tony’s spine tingling, and Bruce’s mouth against his ear, whispering, “How’s your relationship with your father?”

Tony’s lips dry up as they reply, “Bad. Terrible. Usual.”

“That’s good. You two need to get along more.” Bruce’s hands skate over the elastic of Tony’s boxers.

Then Tony jolts away, turning to Bruce with an outreached arm and flat palm against Bruce’s chest, keeping him away. “Bruce,” he says sternly, definitely, resolutely until he looks up and sees Bruce’s face.

If it was any other expression. Any other expression in the world. If Bruce’s eyes were red-rimmed and teary, if his lips were lined with an anxious frown, if his cheeks were flushed from a horny haze or drained from color in guilt, Tony could have managed it. But none of those are Bruce’s face. Not by a longshot.

Bruce is smirking. His eyes are glinting and his brows are quirked with an absolute confidence that looks downright foreign on Bruce’s features. There’s not an ounce of doubt, not a skin cell of hesitation, and the upright curve of Bruce’s back, haphazard splay of his legs, and lingering hands on Tony’s knees makes Tony short-circuit, immobile before the two words resound in his head like a loudspeaker: _Do it._

He does what he wants to do and can’t do. Tony can deal with the guilt later. Right now, he just needs to act, even if it means ruining the relationship forever. The guilt has always been too much, but Tony has to take it a step further, has to get the message across that he isn’t like that sexually. He never will be. It’s not wired in him, even if it’s going to hurt someone whose relationship with him has all but fallen apart, someone who Tony loves, even if he can’t admit it, won’t admit it.

So Tony closes his eyes and acts, forgoing the consequences and destroying the two of them indefinitely.


	17. Technically, Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Death in my family. Happened in September. My oldest brother, Dylan. Unrelated: started college. Computer Science major. Writing doesn't raise up the dead or my GPA, so it's irresponsible for me to write. Still. 
> 
> /Still./
> 
> Still, this chapter is inevitable and overdue and I think about EM too much not to write more of it.

Howard is never going to forgive him. It’s one thing to be desperate and needy with a guy, to mess around once and have it not mean anything. This, however, is different. This is Tony closing his eyes and cupping his left hand against Bruce’s ear, ghosting his fingers into his curly brown hair. This is Bruce connecting their lips and Tony letting him. This is an admittance of the one thing Tony knows his dad would disown him for if he ever found out.

Because Tony isn’t like that sexually, the way his dad wants him to be. He’s never liked just girls; it’s not wired in him. Tony doesn’t like men; he wasn’t lying to Bruce when he’d said that. Boys never get along with Tony, and Tony doesn’t find men attractive on principal. Still, when it’s someone like Bruce or Rhodney, whom Tony would deny having tried to kiss in third grade to his deathbed, someone who he cares about, it’s a different rule set. And Tony hates that.

There is a love for Howard as well, Tony knows. He always has loved him and always fucking will, even though Howard doesn’t deserve it. Bruce, however, deserves every shred. Every touch, kiss, and minimum-wage-paying job at Sears that comes to him, and then a thousand more things because Bruce is fucking amazing.

Realizing his and Bruce’s awkward position, Tony leans back, breaking the gentle kiss. His eyes open and meet Bruce’s, which are half lidded and still beaming with self-assurance.

“I don’t wanna fuck,” Tony states. He feels like a virgin, like some pathetic girl, but Bruce just rolls his eyes and locks his arms around the back of Tony’s neck, pulling Tony down on top of him.

“’Kay. Kiss me.”

Tony does just that.

Closed mouth kissing isn’t something Tony’s done since Pepper. With Bruce, at least, it’s bearable. Touching when it won’t lead to more has never been Tony’s forte, but something about Bruce’s body against his, calm and pliant, makes Tony hold the kiss for a little longer before collapsing next to Bruce in the bed, exhausted.

“Tony,” Bruce murmurs, rolling over so Tony’s body is spooning his. “Who’s gonna turn off the lights?” With a groan, Tony forces his hands up off the bed and claps twice. The lights shut off. Bruce snorts and cuddles into bed, grabbing Tony’s arm and holding it around him. “Your house is ridiculous,” he says.

Tony kisses the nape of Bruce’s neck.

“Go to sleep, Tapestry.”

And Tony falls asleep with Bruce’s sleep-struck chuckle on his mind.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -          

Bruce wakes up alone. At first, he thinks last night was another derailed sex dream, sans the sex part, but a post-it taped over his glasses on the bedside table reads otherwise.

_Cleaning up the party mess. Breakfast is in the mini-fridge in the annex.  
|| Tony  <3-_

Because only Tony Stark would have a mini-fridge in the fifty-seventh floor annex of his mega mansion, Bruce thinks. He can’t believe Tony used a post-it instead of texting him, but when he goes to check his phone, he sees the same message delivered in digital. It makes Bruce smile. Tony covered all bases; he didn’t want Bruce to worry. Clicking the ‘reply’ button, Bruce types out a quick text before heading to the elevator.

_This doesn’t mean we’re dating or anything, right?  
\- Bruce_

Bruce’s opinion from the last night they’d spent together still holds: he doesn’t want to date Tony. Tony is his best friend, and now that Bruce knows what it feels like to lose him, he is absolutely certain he doesn’t want to take that risk again.

_b-baka! i’d never want to be noticed by someone like you!  
|| Tony  <3-_

_And what do you want us to be?  
|| Tony  <3-_

_Senpais. Friends. That fuck on occasion. And you don’t even watch anime.  
\- Bruce_

_I can still appreciate their memes, can’t i?.  
|| Tony  <3-_

_You still didn’t answer my question. At the garden now.  
\- Bruce_

_I’m by the pool.  
|| Tony  <3-_

_I see you.  
\- Bruce_

Bruce shuts off his phone and stores it in his pocket, waving at Tony, who has a throng of maids collecting discarded solo cups with him.

“Luckily for you, we already dealt with the inside. I woke up at like 7:00am,” Tony says.

“Didn’t you want the place to be trashed? ‘Break dad’s stuff,’ I think you said?” By this point, the pool area is about three-quarters clean, and Tony motions for the maids to head back inside. They disappear into the house, leaving Bruce and Tony alone. “Well?” Brush pushes.

“Well nothing. I changed my mind. It doesn’t have to be an issue.”

Bruce grabs one of the maid’s half-full trash bags and starts bending down for solo cups. “With you and Howard, everything is an issue.”

“Look, I decided I want to be on his good side. Otherwise, he won’t let you come over as much or ever. And he likes you, so that’s saying something. Howard hated Pepper. Didn’t even let her come to my birthday parties.”

“Why did he hate Pepper?” Bruce asks.

“More of a salt guy.” Tony ties the top of his garbage sack and lugs it over to the collection of fourteen other full ones propped against the side of the house. “She reminded him too much of Mom, but he told me it was because I was too young to be in a relationship.”

Bruce laughs, trying to keep the conversation light. He’s still unsure of where Tony is emotionally. “Did your dad even know all the shit you got into? You pretty much hosted a rave freshmen year.”

“Look. What I do with my body and my cock is my decision.”

“And what do you want to do with your cock right now, Anthony?” Bruce says, stepping behind Tony and kissing at his ear. Tony turns his head away.

“Confidence is weird on you, Banner, and we need to dispose of these bags before Howard gets here at 2:00pm. Plus, cameras.”

“I proffer a compromise: we do exactly that, but naked. Just, no clothes. Fuck the cameras.”

“You’re an idiot,” Tony spits, hauling the first bag towards the garden. “We have a giant disposal center behind the garden. Either make yourself useful or make yourself lost.” There’s a playful ring to Tony’s voice that lets Bruce know he’s joking.

“You’re so mean. Tsundere.”

“Yes I am, and I’m about to go Yandere on you if you don’t start helping.”

Bruce just smiles, shaking his head and reaching for the trash bags. He grabs four at a time, making Tony stare at the two bags he was struggling to haul with disdain.

“I could do that too,” Tony says to him. “If I wanted.”

“Come on now, Moneybags. You might break a nail.”

“I’m not a girl,” Tony spits. The sting in his voice is too pointed for Bruce to take as a joke.

“Testy.”

An hour later, the back, front, and side yards are spotless save a few splotches of upturned grass and a clump of vomit Tony has covered with potted carnations from the garden. The two of them head inside to the central living room and collapse onto the nearest couch. As they gather themselves, a thought passes Bruce’s brain.

“You said there were cameras outside, right?”

“Cameras everywhere except the top floor.”

“Won’t Howard be able to see the whole party? And everything else that happened here?” Like when Bruce had kissed Tony in Guest Room 3 last month, Bruce thinks.

“Howard doesn’t check every second of footage and the security guards who do like me more than him. They wouldn’t tell a soul unless I burned down the radiation labs or put acid in the pool. Basically, unless Dad notices the house is awry, I’ve never gotten in trouble for the parties I’ve tried to cover up before.”

“You think we cleaned up well enough for Howard Stark not to notice?”

“I think the maids did. Besides, as long as the labs are intact, Howard doesn’t care. You think he uses that pool? It’s only for show, just like everything else he does.”

Bruce decides to ignore the vile in Tony’s voice for the time being.

“Still, I think we should—” Bruce starts, but Tony cuts him off by pulling Bruce’s shirt collar with his fingers so their faces are almost touching.

“Bruce, do you want to spend the last sixty minutes before Howard gets home dusting or getting fucked?”

“There’s a lot of benefits to dusting,” Bruce argues, moving so he’s straddling Tony’s lap. “Cleanliness, quality of air; I could go on.”

Ten seconds of Tony just staring at Bruce pass before Tony laughs, gripping his hands over Bruce’s sides.

“You should not be allowed to talk during foreplay.”

“Foreplay?” Bruce exclaims. “But Tony we’re men. How ever will we uphold our records as infallible heterosexuals?”

The minute the joke leaves Bruce’s mouth Bruce regrets it, the fleeting flash of ‘fuck-you’ over Tony’s face screaming ‘Bruce you messed up!’ in perfect clarity.

“Tony,” he tries, but Tony’s already rolling out from under him.

“We could double check the garden if you’re worried about it. I don’t think anyone went there except us last night, but I’m not certain.”

“The maids dealt with the garden, you’d said.”

Tony stands up off the couch and starts towards the sliding glass door leading to the pool-front.

“Still. To be sure,” he says, and Bruce heads after him.

“And are you sure?” Bruce asks gripping the back of Tony’s shoulder with his hand.

“Yeah. Definitely. We don’t pay the maids enough to trust them with nuanced tasks like this. You can stay in here, and I can check. You’re the guest, after all.”

Bruce moves his hand away, disconnecting himself from Tony.

“Sorry,” he says on instinct. Tony pauses, biting his lip before turning back and leaning in like he’s going to kiss Bruce. Just before Tony does, though, Tony recoils, swallowing and nodding instead.

“Don’t worry about it. Bad timing is all. Be right back.”

And Tony’s out the door.

\--- -  -  --- - - --- -   -          

It’s not a problem with Bruce, really. There’s no trash in the garden, and Tony knows this, but the plants have a cathartic effect, and Tony can’t deal with anything with consciousness at the moment. He stays outside for fifteen more minutes before heading back through the gates to the poolside. Sitting outside on a striped white lounge chair, Bruce is huddled over, freezing probably since the outdoor heaters only run at night.

“Howard’s not gonna notice,” Tony says as he walks back to the poolside.

“That’s a relief.”

“Yeah. Wanna Star Wars? I haven’t seen _Revenge of the Sith_ in ages.”

“Okay.”

The tone of Bruce’s voice gives it away, prompting Tony to reply with a factual, “You don’t wanna watch Star Wars.”

“I always want to watch Star Wars.” Bruce isn’t looking at him. Tony really thought he could go at least twelve hours without being an asshole to Bruce, but old habits die hard, Tony figures.

“Sorry I got weird,” Tony tries. The words feel like spaghetti in his mouth.

“It’s okay.”

There’s a pause.

“You were a lot more confident last night,” Tony says.

“I didn’t have anything to lose last night,” Bruce replies. That makes Tony glance at him, eyebrows raised. Bruce doesn’t return the glance, “I mean, it wasn’t really a secret that I was into you. I kissed you. We fucked. I didn’t want you to just keep being my friend because you felt guilty about it, and that’s what it would have been if you didn’t have the same ideas about us that I did. Month of Silence was evidence enough that we can’t be friends if I liked you and you didn’t’.”

How Bruce is so good being honest, Tony has no clue. When Tony tries to tell the truth, it either comes out as an innuendo or a shouting tournament.

“If you would have still been my friend after the ‘Month of Silence,’ I would have been honored. It was an assish move on my part.” Tony says.

“And if you did, what would have happened the next time I tried to kiss you?”

“I hate this,” Tony spits, teeth grinding together. He doesn’t say it to Bruce, gesturing at the air instead in an attempt to clarify what he’s referring to.

“Me?” Bruce blurts before banging the back of his head against the rim of the pool chair. “That was stupid to say. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s this talking thing I hate. Not you.”

“You didn’t kiss me last night out of guilt, right?”

A beat. Then Tony replies, “No.”

“You paused.”

“Not a guilt thing.”

“So what was you backing off earlier?”

“Can we not do this? Please? I don’t do girlfriends because, frankly, conversations like this make me want to—” Pepper’s voice cuts into Tony’s head, a fight eight-grade summer and a chastising _‘I tell you about my feelings for you because I have feelings for you. How’s me caring about you a negative?’_ “I can’t deal with them.”

“I’m not a fan of them either. Probably, it’s because Anxious Bruce has two modes: battering and bumbling.”

“Battering’s when you, like,” and Tony jerks his head back, simulating banging it against a wall. Bruce nods.

“And bumbling is when I can’t stop fucking talking. It’s a bad habit, but I don’t want to fuck things up again, so I’m being overly cautious before anything starts. I mean, I still can’t believe how many times I texted you last month. Isn’t it supposed to be two in a row and then you stop? Like, get the memo, Bruce; he doesn’t want to talk to you and now all I’m doing is talking.”

“Confident Bruce was a nice change of pace,” Tony says, unable to think of anything else.

“Right.”

“Normal Bruce is fine too.”

“Right.”

Another one of the irritating silences pass. Then, Tony gets an idea:

“There are benefits to Normal Bruce. Confident Bruce seems a bit to toppy for my taste.” Sex. Tony’s good at sex. The line makes Bruce look at him, so it’s not a total failure, at least. The lack of eye-contact had been murder.

“You like your partners compliant?”

“I like _you_ compliant,” Tony says. The tiny smile on Bruce’s face is a positive sign, Tony notes before continuing quickly, “And sorry about locking up earlier.”

“It’s fine. I wouldn’t really wanna fuck me either. I've got baggage.” Bruce clamps his fingers around his belly rolls. “You know, like down here.”

“I’ve told you before: love handles. You know, its big girls who have the best tits.”

“And what do big boys have?”

“Are you fishing for compliments?”

Bruce smirks, tilting his head and raising his shoulders.

“Maybe,” Bruce says. “You gonna bite? Hard?”

“You’re coming onto me.”

“Better than coming out—” Bruce stops the quip before it lands, and Tony immediately steps in.

“There’s this closet on the fifty-seventh floor that has padded floors. Ideal fuck zone for upstanding heterosexuals, I hear.”

And it’s that amazed, surprised, all-teeth smile Bruce does when he’s expecting disappointment and doesn’t get it that makes Tony’s neck go warm. It’s always accompanied with Bruce looked down and rubbing his neck, which is iconically Bruce-esque.

“Anything else on floor fifty-seven I missed?” Bruce jokes, glancing back up. “A movie theater? Bowling alley? Sex torture dungeon?”

“Dungeon’s actually on the twentieth floor.”

“Isn’t that where your dad sleeps?”

Tony gives Bruce a mockingly-innocent smile before motioning to the living room with his chin.

“So, Star Wars?”

“Start with _A New Hope_ ,” Bruce says, standing up and walking past him. “And Skip _Phantom Menace_ , obviously.”

Tony just laughs.

“Whatever you say, Darling.”

And Bruce quite lovingly flips him off.


End file.
